H2E Power to start producing electrolysers from April 

Pune-based H2E Power Systems expects to start manufacturing electrolysers for producing green hydrogen from April, the company’s founder and CEO, Siddharth Mayur, has told businessline.

The company, he said, would manufacture electrolysers with all the four technologies — alkaline, proton exchange membrane, solid oxide and anion exchange membrane — spending $40 million for that purpose.

The plan

The first plant, for 50 MW, slated to be commissioned in April, is coming up at Jalgaon in Maharashtra. Mayur said while the manufacturing infrastructure would be set up for 1 GW of electrolysers, H2E Power would start with 50 MW and move to 200 MW next year.

Mayur said H2E Power has developed the technologies, though with technical help from the German Fraunhofer Institute. H2E Power owns the intellectual property. He said the company would showcase its 500 kW AEM electrolyser at the Hannover Messe fair, which is to be held in April. 

AEM is an emerging technology, which is said to have the best of the cheap alkaline and the efficient PEM. Alkaline is said to be not-so-safe; PEM needs costly platinum group metals.

businessline had reported in January last year of H2E Power’s plans to get into the manufacturing of electrolysers. Mayur had then said the company was financially backed by the Poonawala family that owns the vaccine manufacturer, Serum Institute of India. The family has a stake in H2E Power.

If H2E Power manufactures electrolysers in India from April, it might be the second company, after the US-headquartered Ohmium, to produce the machines in the country.

India is going to need all the electrolysers it can get, if it must meet the target of producing 5 million tonnes of green hydrogen by 2030. The Pune-based National Chemical Laboratory, a public-funded research institution that has been at green hydrogen for a long time, has said 5 mt of green hydrogen would call for 32 GW of electrolysers (assuming all the green hydrogen would come from splitting of water — the biomass route is another option).

‘Pleasant surprise’

Mayur said the allocation of ₹19,400 crore for the green hydrogen sector was a pleasant, surprise new year gift by the government, because the industry had been expecting only around ₹3,000-4,000 crore. He said the allocation would be a game-changer and would spur manufacture of electrolysers in India.

Asked about the price of green hydrogen, Mayur said at the current prices of renewable energy, green hydrogen cannot be sold less than $3 a kg, even with the best of technologies. If green hydrogen prices must come down, renewable energy must be cheaper, he said.

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