Electrolyser manufacturing company HomiHydrogen, which has set up an electrolyser plant in Jalgaon, Maharashtra, is ready to manufacture electrolysers but is not commissioning the plant as there is no demand. The capex made at the plant is lying idle with no visibility of orders.
Homi Hydrogen, promoted by H2e Power Systems and BlueBasic AMA Engineering, and backed by Cyrus and Aadar Poonawalla’s Poonawalla Cleantech, has invested Rs 400 crore in the project and is awaiting commercial-scale orders generally in the range of 500 kw to 1 MW.
What did Siddharth Mayur say?
Siddharth Mayur, founder and executive director of HomiHydrogen, stated that the Jalgaon plant can produce 150 MW in one shift and 300 MW in two shifts. However, the plant has not been commissioned due to insufficient demand for domestically manufactured electrolysers. He noted that sustaining operations would be challenging once the plant is commissioned without adequate demand.
According to Mayur, the government has done well in pushing the supply side and around Rs 5.000-6,000 crore has been invested by companies in setting up electrolyser plants. The total supply is pegged at 8 gigawatt.
They were not alone in this situation. Most of the other companies that have set up or are setting up the manufacturing facility are on the same board. A total of 12 companies have received PLI for the local production of electrolysers, which are in a similar situation, barring the Adani and Reliance Group electrolyser projects. Adani and Reliance are supplying electrolysers to group companies and have a captive market.
PLI schemes
The government’s PLI schemes provided Rs 4,440 crore for electrolyser manufacturing. This PLI can only be claimed when the company supplies the electrolysers to customers. Electrolysers want the PLI scheme to be extended, help in demand creation or impose dumping duty on cheaper Chinese imports.
In the government tenders, there is the L1 requirement, and they are required to have three years of experience, and in the private sector, they have to compete with Chinese equipment that costs around 30-40% lower per kW than Indian equipment. Mayur is worried that under these circumstances, the domestic manufacturing industry will not take off. While there is demand in the export market, customers will not entertain them if they are not able to sell in the home market, he said. If there is commitment to pick up around 1.5 GW for five years, the whole ecosystem will take off. Providing viability gap funding could be a way out for the industry. “We need an anchor to kickstart the business,” Mayur suggests.
Homi Hydrogen is a pure play electrolyser with a portfolio of all the electrolyser technologies, including Solid Oxide Electrolyser, Anion Exchange Membrane, Alkaline Membrane Solid Electrolyser, Polymer Exchange Membrane and Alkaline Water Electrolyser. Hydrogen is applied in cement kilns, steel blast furnaces, green ammonia fertiliser, input for the chemical industry, cooling at thermal plants and mobility industry.