IndianOil, the country’s largest refiner and fuel retailer, on Wednesday said it is inviting bids to procure 15 Polymer Electrolyte Membrane (PEM) fuel cell buses. This project is the first-ever attempt to address all the aspects of hydrogen-based mobility as the ultimate green option.
“IndianOil has been pioneering the hydrogen efforts in the country, and this exercise is a part of a bigger project which aims at addressing all aspects of the hydrogen value chain,” S M Vaidya, Chairman, IndianOil said.
He also informed that this venture is supported partially by the Union Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas’ hydrogen corpus fund.
To facilitate the hydrogen supply for refuelling these buses, IndianOil is also setting up demo units for different pathways to produce hydrogen of around one-tonne per day production capacity, at its R&D Centre in Faridabad.
The fuel cell buses would be evaluated in collaboration with the selected OEM partner through a wide-scale field validation exercise in Delhi-NCR on a structured scientific format, the company said.
One of the key ingredients of this project is that the fuel cell stack/system technology would be indigenously developed and manufactured in AatmaNirbhar Bharat’s spirit, thus accelerating the creation of a local ecosystem to support further activities in the hydrogen energy domain, the company added.