Kakasaheb Konde, Sangram Patil and Shuvashish Behera
Department of Alcohol Technology and Biofuels, Vasantdada Sugar Institute (VSI), Manjari (Bk.), Pune-412307, India; kakasaheb.konde@gmail.com
India uses about 6 Mt of hydrogen every year in industrial sectors, and this will rise to 28 Mt by 2050. To reduce its carbon emissions by 2050, India aims for 80% green hydrogen production to meet its total demand. Green hydrogen will have a significant share as a cleaner fuel in the energy requirement of India in addition to ethanol and bio-CNG in future. There is ample opportunity for the sugar and allied industries to produce green hydrogen. The sugar industry has excess of generated electricity after local consumption; this excess electricity is sold to grid, but input tariffs are reducing. Hence, the sugar industry is looking for economically viable alternatives such as green hydrogen production using water electrolysis with this electricity. Bagasse, which is carbon neutral energy source, can be also used for hydrogen production using gasification. Press mud cake and spent wash is used for biogas production using anaerobic digestion. Steam methane reforming can be used for production of hydrogen from methane or biogas. A green hydrogen demonstration plant based on water electrolysis technology and with a capacity of 2 kg hydrogen per day was installed at the Vasantdada Sugar Institute (VSI), Pune. Based on the data from this demonstration plant, a techno-economic study for 5 tonnes per day green hydrogen production using water electrolysis seems to be techno-economically viable with a payback period of less than 5 years.