Hero Future Energies Goes Global, Expands Wings in SE Asia, Europe

In India the major growth will come from round-the-clock hybrid (wind-solar) projects with battery storage playing a crucial role, Iyer said.

“India has set a target to reduce its carbon intensity to 45% of the 2011 levels by 2030 and secure 50% of the installed power capacity from renewables,” he said.

However, renewables alone will not be able to achieve these targets, he said, since power contributes only 20% of the total carbon emissions across the globe.

It is the hard-to-abate industries like steel, refineries, fertilisers, and corporates, especially the commercial and industrial sectors, that will have to commit to renewable energy since they are the major off-takers of electricity.

“Hero Future can play a major role in providing round-the-clock electricity to the commercial and industrial segment,” Iyer said. “To that extent, we are participating in major battery storage and green hydrogen tenders.”

“Going ahead, we see peak power and round-the-clock types of requirements to drive the growth.”

In immediate terms, the company is identifying sectors that consume conventional hydrogen that can be replaced with green hydrogen. “This would give us the way to quickly execute the projects without having to think about what to do with hydrogen produced,” Iyer said.

Industries need to execute a couple of projects to learn how to reduce the cost of hydrogen and the policy framework will help in the process, he said.

The company sees the green hydrogen business evolving in the form of the distributed model, which will have fairly different economics compared with conventional hydrogen, Iyer said.

The conventional hydrogen needs to be transported in cryogenic containers, or they are converted into liquid ammonia that is reconverted to hydrogen, he said.

However, in the distributed model, the projects will be set up closer to the point of consumption, which would be smaller in size and would not require large-scale storage or long-distance travel, Iyer said. “This would help save on transportation and storage costs for the developers.”