From an Element in periodic table, Hydrogen became the mission of my life

What triggered you to venture into this space 13 years back when there was hardly any discussion about hydrogen as becoming a major source for energy?

Diwali of 2009 was a turning point in my life. I can still recall my grandmother’s voice lamenting about the power outage in her village during the ‘Festival of Lights’ and that she had no choice but to perform the rituals in candle light.

Power cuts were not something new to me but what irked me the most was the challenge the farmers, who toil so hard to put the food in our plates were facing just 30 km away from my place with 24X7 electricity. Somehow this thought stayed with me and I kept thinking to find a way for ‘24 x 7 Clean, Green, Reliable & Affordable Energy for All’.

 This was more like wishful thinking as no one in the mankind had succeeded to put it all together, but I still thought this idea to be worth exploring which was the seed for my entrepreneurial journey in the energy industry.

Next two years were very busy as I went scouting for available options till I came across fuel cell technology. Though these aligned well with all the parameters of clean, green & reliable, there was absolutely no infrastructure or ecosystem that could have facilitated nurturing this idea and there were no ready references which could have given me a cue to start.

So affordability question was out and the success of project seemed to be a far cry at that time, but there was definite hope that the technology had lot of potential for cost reduction & with the Indian Jugad, this seemed very likely.

Further research led me to Fraunhofer Institute of Ceramic Technology (IKTS) in Dresden, Germany to have technology partnership. During our research on fuel cells, we found that on reversing the process , instead of using hydrocarbons as feed to produce electricity, heat & water, water and Carbon Dioxide could be used as the feed to produce syn-gas which is the building block for all downstream hydrocarbons like Kerosene, Methanol, High value Waxes etc.

Around this time, as a net importer of energy, India’s energy bill stood at around USD 130 to 140 billion. Although we did realise that introducing hydrogen in the primary energy mix could be a game changer for India. This thought was a ‘Eureka Moment’ when from an Element in the periodic table Hydrogen became the centre of my universe, a mission for me as the clean source of energy which could solve the energy issue for people and turn around India from net importer to an energy independent global energy exporter.  My dream of Swadeshi Urja for a Swawalambi Bharat got its Hydrogen wings.

So how did you get your first breakthrough of setting up first commercial green hydrogen project?

Everyone wants to save the planet. I have heard people lecture about their concern for the environment and urgency to address climate change, but when it comes to investing in an innovation that is yet developing and cannot immediately fetch you return on investments, it is a big challenge to get the same people on board and to write a commercial order even though they can but they are not ready to!

Any new business idea is met with resistance by the investors who benchmark it with the other existing & available options. So it was no surprise for us when the investors compared our quotation to develop hydrogen with solar that was picking up in India at that time. They were concerned about cost effectiveness (many still are), supply chain reliability, scalability etc which were actual impediments in implementation of the hydrogen ecosystem.

But as an entrepreneur you know when you are ready to run with the idea, so I and my wife Bhavana decided to use our personal savings as the seed fund for the cause of Hydrogen, way back in 2010 and my Partner and friend Amar joined in with his technical expertise.

It was later in 2019 when I met Mr. Adar Poonawala, CEO, Serum Institute of India who was very supportive to the Climate Vision and joined us as an Investor & a Partner. There is a general notion about the PSUs in India as being very bureaucratic, conservative to accepting new ideas. I am glad to say that I was pleasantly surprised when I met the team at IndianOil R&D lead by Dr. S S V Ramakumar and later Mr S C Mishra, CMD, Oil India Ltd my mentors who believed in our start up ideas and gave us our commercial breakthroughs.

When I met Mr Mishra, he liked the conviction of our start up and was ready to take the risk to implement the first green hydrogen pilot project but this required us to go through public procurement process and we received the tender to build the demo unit.

As we qualified the first step and overcame the daunting challenge, we had the herculean task to complete the pilot plant in less than 120 days. Yes, it was 120 days for us and I conveyed to my team for 100 days deadline and my team beat this deadline to deliver & commission India’s first Commercial Green Hydrogen Project in 93 calendar days. Had it not been for Mr Mishra, the board of OIL and the OIL India team’s support, this project would have never taken off and I still recall his conviction & simple words ‘I know you can do it’ which just energized every single cell in my body then and will continue to inspire me all my life.

Earlier in life, Indian Oil’s Director R&D, Dr Ramakumar bet on us for the supply of a Hydrogen Forklift and developing a concept for providing independent Charging infrastructure for EV’s based on a Fuel Cell, Solar & Battery hybrid system, which was delivered by our team and is now awaiting commercialisation. I am forever indebted to these two organisations for believing in an Indian StartUp & continuing to work with us to realise the NetZero goals set forth by our Honorable Prime Minister.

What are the gaps that need to be addressed in the short & long term , how are you preparing for India’s green hydrogen story?

From the year 2020 onwards, hydrogen & fuel cell technology is getting lot of traction in India and most of the big boys in Indian energy sector have joined the bandwagon. However the success of this initiative will require strong support and coordination from the Central & State Governments for implementation of these projects at multiple dimensions.

H2E Power Systems has the unique distinction of having complete ownership of intellectual properties for powder chemistry, electronics, and processes right up to the systems for Electrolysers & Fuel Cells. We are truly enthused to see the way our Government is driving the development of this future energy source and are well and are prepared to play pivotal role for our country to realise the National Green Hydrogen Mission.

With a big push to ‘Make in India’ in our hindsight, we are working simultaneously on setting up supply chains, manufacturing facilities for electrolysers & over 380 components that are required to build these electrolyzers alone. This will be essential in bringing down the cost of electrolyzers and nullifying Indian Energy sector’s dependence on global scenario & supply chain disruptions thus increasing reliability & resilience in Indian Energy projects related to electrolyzers and hydrogen.

Even if a single piece of equipment is outsourced, the entire value chain and supply chain will continue to rely on imports thus defeating the whole purpose of AtmanirbharBharat initiative. Now it is for the Government to create this kind of ecosystem that can be done through building Special Economic Zones to enable establishing Green Hydrogen Giga scale capacities.

Trained manpower is a cornerstone and India needs at least 50,000 trained engineers per year specializing in NetZero technologies who can & will take responsibility to implement these technologies at the ground level. Our education system needs complete overhaul as the institutions right from the schools, colleges and research need to align with the evolving trends so that students can understand & learn to innovate from a young age and get educated about implementing the technologies.

At H2E Power Systems, we run ‘Urja Udyami’ a 9 months training program for technicians to train and expose them to these technologies for services & maintenance as well as financial models to create Energy Entrepreneurs. We aim to develop 1, 00, 000 professionals by 2030, who will be able to serve up to 3, 00, 000 villages thus truly take this technology to the masses. Each one; Make one, will ensure that these 100,000 UrjaUdhyami’s will help at least a million Indian’s achieve Energy Independence & become NetZero.

With stabilization of supply chains, the cost of Green Technologies is coming down and there is significant improvement in last mile connectivity over the last couple of years. My observation is, with more work we can be energy independent before 2047 and to achieve this we should completely dedicate the next 10 years to solve the energy problems and then target becoming Net Zero before 2070.

How do we prepare to address the challenges in Hydrogen storage & transportation?

We are absolutely not prepared. Our reliance is near 100% on imports which makes us totally dependent on Europe for all Hydrogen storage solutions at present. Although some prominent institutions and corporates are working to develop indigenous solutions like IndianOil R&D is developing Carbon Fibre cylinders, IIT Bombay is working on solid state hydrogen storage, our sister concern Ohm CleanTech is working on LOHC solutions that was awarded to them through start-up program of Oil India and so is National Chemical Lab, Pune.  However, this will require a lot more effort as well as patient investments to find sustainable solutions.

Ammonia & Methanol have always been the easier ways for hydrogen transportation. At H2E we have made remarkable strides for producing hydrogen using all the 4 type of electrolysers viz. Alkaline, PEM, AEM & Solid Oxide industrialising these technologies and making them ready for mass production in India. Currently our research team is exploring alternate routes to produce methanol & SAF via co-electrolysis using SOEC. Industrial emissions can be captured and at single step Co-electrolysed to produce CO and H2 that become building block for any hydrocarbon.

We can produce Ammonia & E- kerosene, a sustainable aviation fuel that will be important energy carriers in the future. Methanol does not require specialised equipment and can be transported in normal tanks. These are transient technologies that will be in use till the time solid state storage of hydrogen or LOHC is developed. Parallelly, India will need 15-20 year long program to develop Hydrogen pipeline infrastructure by 2045 just like how the country has developed cross country natural gas lines network.

Which are some of the major Hydrogen pipeline infrastructure projects on the horizon?

European Union is envisaging to invest close to 150 billion Euros to establish the hydrogen pipeline network across EU nations & considering to buy or produce H2 in bulk from North African countries or in Spain & transport H2 through pipe to the mainland. Post approval, the completion of project could take somewhere between 10-15 years.

EU has taken cognizance of energy supply disruptions due to Russian war on Ukraine and is trying diversifying the energy import basket for risk mitigation.  Other than hoping to produce hydrogen in Morocco, Libya or Namibia, the EU is looking to broaden the supplier network for hydrogen & ammonia across 10 countries. In my view, India can easily leverage this opportunity for short term profits through ammonia exports and look at future long term supplies.  

Tell us about some of the key projects in India & globally to stimulate the use of hydrogen for domestic applications.

In India, many corporates & research institutions are trying to develop hydrogen & natural gas mix models. We are working with IIT Guwahati and researching on the different mix percentages of 2, 5, 10 & 15 which will be followed by installation fuel cells at homes to produce heat & electricity and for applications in Oil & Gas industry.  

GAIL is pursuing a pilot project in Indore on gas blending in CGD network, a lot of private companies like Torrent are working on developing demonstrator projects on blending Green Hydrogen in their CGD networks. These are low pressure pipelines and can tolerate up to 18% of hydrogen, which is corrosive in nature.  After determination of mix percentage, fuel cells can be installed and many homes can be taken off the grid. Japan is a very good example where they have taken half a million homes off the grid. 

We are working on pilot project to take 100- 200 homes off the grid. This project will have 5% H2 and 95% natural gas in the pipeline connected to the fuel cells which will convert this into heat & electricity thus taking them completely off the grid. Taking homes off the grid will have a huge increase in efficiency as house will consume only the energy it needs thus reducing the impact on power plants which will not have to run at maximum capacities all the times This will reduce the energy costs by almost 20-25% in long run and will definitely save the transmission & distribution losses.We have spoken to the Ministry in this regard and appraised them on our idea.

H2E is also a part of PACE project consortium in Europe, which is working towards powering almost 10, 00,000 homes with Fuel Cell based micro co-generators. UK is working on heat pump & fuel cell combined work for heating & electrical needs.

Another very progressive initiative is the Hydrogen Valley project in Netherlands where in phase 1 of this pilot a community of 50 to 100 homes will be supplied hydrogen energy to meet the heat & electricity requirements to completely take them off the grid. This is still at experimental stage to understand complete reliance on hydrogen as the energy source and to have dedicated H2 pipelines over the next 10-15 years. 

Having said this, hydrogen alone will not work in the long run. Synergistic efforts are needed to move forward from fossil fuels as the cheapest source and develop hydrogen & combination of new technologies as the affordable energy sources to address the challenge of decarbonisation and meeting the Net Zero goals.

What are your future plans?

We are highly focused on organic growth to build strong foundation and ecosystem. By the end of 2023, we will start to manufacture some of the electrolysers and a few key components in India and over the next few years we will scale it up to a Gigawatt capacity.

In the next five years, we have planned outlay of INR 500 crore to build manufacturing facilities, infrastructure and supply chains in India first and then globally. In the next seven years we plan to have 100,000 Urja Udyamis on ground doing last mile connectivity, set up 1 GW of manufacturing facility for all types of fuel cells. Globally, we see lot of potential for us in the Middle East, Africa & South East Asia, but at present we are all about making Green Hydrogen happen in India.

H2E is working towards building the legacy & aspires to be a unicorn serving 1 billion customers, not just a unicorn with a billion $ valuation by offering – ‘24 x 7 Clean, Green, Reliable & Affordable Energy for All’ .