Reliance Green Hydrogen and Green Chemicals, L&T Energy, ReNew E-fuels, Waaree Clean Energy Solution, Avaada Green H2, and AM Green were among the fourteen companies that placed bids for financial incentives linked to production of green hydrogen, under the second tranche of Strategic Interventions for Green Hydrogen Transition Programme (SIGHT) Scheme.
This was announced by the Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI), the implementing agency for the auction, on Tuesday. The SECI had invited bids for setting up of 450,000 tonnes per annum of green hydrogen capacities with 40,000 tonnes per annum capacity reserved for biomass-based pathways (bucket-II) and the rest for technology agnostic pathways (bucket-I).
While Reliance Green Hydrogen, L&T Energy Green Tech, AM Green, and Waaree Clean Energy Solution bid for a production capacity of 90,000 tonnes per annum each under bucket-I, ReNew bidded for 55,000 tonnes per annum of capacity, followed by Avaada with 45,000 tonnes per annum.
Other companies that submitted bids under the second tranche included ChemSepT Engineering, Green Infra Renewable Energy Farms, GH2 Solar, Matrix Gas and Renewables, Nishal Enterprises, Ocior Energy, Oriana Power, and, Suryadeep KA1.
The Indian private sector is betting big on the renewable energy sector particularly in the production of green hydrogen with plans to set up huge capacities. In an interaction with FE earlier, Vineet Mittal, Chairman of Avaada Energy has said that the company plans to set up dedicated green hydrogen and derivatives production facilities and export it to the West.
Avaada is presently working on a half million tonnes green ammonia project in Gopalpur, Orissa with an estimated investment of Rs 25,000 crore and has many upcoming projects in the segment in Maharashtra and Orissa in the next few years.
Waaree Energies has also disclosed its plans to diversify into green hydrogen and is also looking at setting up electrolyser manufacturing capacity through its wholly owned subsidiary. It has already won a contract under the government’s SIGHT scheme to set up a 300 MW of electrolyser manufacturing capacity.
As per the bidding guidelines for tranche – II auction, the minimum bid under bucket-I is 10,000 tonnes per year while the maximum bid is 90,000 tonnes per year. The minimum bid capacity in bucket-II is 500 tonnes per year and the maximum capacity is 4,000 tonnes per year. The maximum capacity which a single bidder can be allotted in this tranche is 90,000 tonnes per year.
After the issuance of the Letter of Award (LoA), the bidder can choose to set up multiple projects to implement the allocated capacity.
The government has put the cap for the financial incentive under the scheme at Rs 50 per kg in the first year of production, Rs 40 per kg in the second, and Rs 30 per kg in the last year.
The government had launched the National Green Hydrogen Mission last year with an outlay of Rs 19,744 crores up to 2029-30 in order to boost domestic production of green hydrogen. This includes an outlay of Rs 17,490 crore for the SIGHT programme, Rs 1,466 crore for pilot projects, Rs 400 crore for R&D, and Rs 388 crore towards other mission components.
The mission envisages India’s green hydrogen production capacity to reach at least 5 million tonnes per annum, with an associated renewable energy capacity addition of about 125 GW by FY30.