With a bold vision for a sustainable future, Bharat Petroleum Corp. (BPCL) has announced its collaboration with the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) to escalate the production of green hydrogen in India. The team aims to build a 1MW electrolyzer production capacity by 2025, utilizing BARC’s advanced green hydrogen technology.
BPCL’s research and development department is joining forces with BARC to scale up the alkaline electrolyzer technology. According to Bharat L. Newalkar, BPCL’s chief general manager (R&D), this technology and potential financial strides could cut the alkaline electrolyzer’s price by half. This would make the electrolyzers created at the proposed factory 20-30% more affordable than the current market rate.
Also Read: Pioneer in Digital Transformation, Manisha Seewal, Named Redhill’s President
For green hydrogen production to be commercially viable, the capital and operating costs need to come down, says Ravikumar V, head of R&D at BPCL. It requires innovative solutions and governmental support to reduce the price of green hydrogen, currently thrice as expensive as grey hydrogen.
Most state-run refineries plan to produce green hydrogen to replace a significant portion of the grey hydrogen, mainly used for sulphur removal from petrol. BPCL’s R&D department has also developed a more efficient LPG cooking stove burner, capable of saving one gas cylinder annually per household, with over 70,000 stoves already sold. The news is based on the Industry Outlook report.
