The Week | Firms swear by clean energy during India Energy Week

Feb 08,2023

Firms participating in the India Energy Week in Bengaluru want to focus on the clean energy space and transition of existing capacities and creation of new energy capacities. Many companies agree that technology, in the clean energy space, is evolving fast. Moving to green energy is the need of the hour because, within Asia, India will have the highest energy demand growth in the coming decades. India's energy demand is projected to increase from 18.6 million barrels per day of oil in 2021 to 37.7 million barrels per day in 2045.

“The idea is to use existing capacities to decarbonise and bring in future fuels, to be supplied from the existing capacities. Having said that, it is not an easy solution to replace. However, we must use all the existing infrastructure to build new and clean energy systems. Improvement in technology will be fast and quick as we have seen in solar space. The challenge right now is to bring down the cost of hydrogen (production) but I am sure that in the next few years, we would see rapid progress in this space,” said Prashant Ruia, director, Essar Capital, and chairman of the board, Essar Oil UK.

Many firms also felt that the need of the day is to have a mix of fossil and renewable sources of energy with cutting-edge technologies.

Union Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas and Minister of Housing and Urban Affairs Hardeep Singh Puri said India's oil and gas industry has made significant strides in recent years and risen to the occasion in a commendable manner during these challenging times by ensuring energy supplies.

“Our strategy of development rests on seven key transitions to low carbon development pathways. The strategy calls for low carbon development for electricity systems consistent with development of an integrated, efficient and inclusive transport system, promotion of faculty and material efficiency in buildings, sustainable urbanisation, economy-wide decoupling of growth from emission, and development of efficient innovative low emissions industrial systems,” said Puri.

According to many, India is uniquely positioned when it comes to building clean energy systems to meet its future energy demand. “While we definitely cannot copy what is happening in developed countries, we also need to have a plan. There has to be a lot of different plans working simultaneously towards a common goal. Fossil fuel should be seen as a part of the solution rather than the problem. We need to see howwe explore it fully, how we find out new opportunities, what incentives we give to renewables, how we ensure that all the organisations are consciously working on their own plans, and what are the fiscal benefits,” remarked Hitesh Vaid, chief financial officer, Cairn Oil & Gas (Vedanta).

Rajiv Agarwal, director, technical, at EIL (Engineers India Limited) is of the opinion that green hydrogen is something that is used in mainly two industries in India—refinery and fertilizer plants. “Right now, they are using hydrogen which is produced from natural gas which is a fossil fuel and that is considered as grey hydrogen. The long-term idea is to replace this hydrogen with green hydrogen. The grey hydrogen has a lot of carbon footprint. One kg of hydrogen that is produced emits 10 kgs of CO2. If a refinery is using ten tonnes per hour, it is emitting 100 tonnes of CO2 per hour. Instead, green hydrogen can be used in our natural gas network so that the carbon footprint can be reduced,” Agarwal told THE WEEK.

He said there are other applications such as steel making where they are thinking of using green hydrogen as currently coke is used for steel making. Coke can be replaced by hydrogen and the steel produced will be green steel. “Many European countries may start importing only green steel in the future. Green hydrogen will shape up and help in decarbonisation in the future. At EIL we are aiming for Net Zero by 2035. We are a consultancy company and the major carbon footprint comes in from the electricity that we use in our offices. So we are installing solar energy at our R&D centre in Gurugram. For other companies also we are aiming for a plan to make them net zero as well. We develop end-to-end refineries, festiliser plants, petrochemicals plants etc. for our clients such as Indian Oil, Bharat Petroleum, HPCL etc. We have build multiple refineries in the country from the grassroots. We also develop infrastructure for ports harbors, etc and want to use a green carbon footprint there as well. We have also built many petrochemicals complexes from grass root for our clients,” said Agarwal.

India Energy Week was held under the patronage of the ministry of petroleum and natural gas, and connected a network of energy stakeholders with international counterparts for collaboration and conversation for a responsible and smart energy transition on India’s road to net-zero.