As the world rapidly moves to decarbonize the entire energy system, hydrogen is poised to play a vital role and build on the rapid scale-up of renewable resources across the world. In India, to achieve its net-zero targets, a few innovative projects are coming up where renewable energy, green hydrogen, and microgrids converge to complement each other.  

Aligning with this, NTPC Simhadri laid Foundation Stone for World’s largest Green Hydrogen Microgrid Project which is a ‘Standalone Fuel-Cell Micro-grid Pilot project with hydrogen production using electrolyzer’.

At Simhadri, NTPC has already set up a 25 MW floating solar project, and, with the expertise of Bloom Energy, it is now developing a standalone fuel cell-based 50 kW microgrid with hydrogen production, as a pilot at its 2,000 MW Simhadri thermal power plant near Visakhapatnam. 

Interacting with the Hello Vizag during the Annual Media Meet here on Monday, Diwakar Kaushik, Chief General Manager at NTPC Simhadri  said, “During the day, the power generated by the floating solar panels electrolyze water to produce hydrogen. The green hydrogen thus produced is stored and later utilized for power generation during the night.” 

Hydrogen will be produced by the advanced 240 kW solid oxide electrolyzer using the power generated by the floating solar project during the day. The hydrogen is then stored at high pressure for use by a 50kW solid oxide fuel cell.

The system would work in a standalone mode from 5 pm to 7 am. The project’s configuration has been designed in-house. The company currently has an installed capacity of over 67,907.5 MW.

According to Kaushik, this will be India’s first green hydrogen-based energy storage project and one of the world’s largest. It would be a precursor to large-scale hydrogen energy storage projects, and useful for studying and deploying multiple microgrids in various off-grid and strategic locations of the country. Hydrogen when produced by electrolysis using renewable energy is known as Green Hydrogen which has no carbon footprint.

This gives Hydrogen the edge over other fuels to unlock various avenues of green usage. Also, this unique project will open doors for decarbonizing far-off regions of the country like Ladakh, Jammu and Kashmir, and other areas where there are no transmission lines and are dependent on diesel generators,” says Kaushik. 

With a total installed capacity of 66900 MW, NTPC Group has 71 power stations including 29 renewable projects. NTPC has set a target to install 60 gigawatts (GW) of renewable energy (RE) capacity by 2032. NTPC is also India’s first energy company to declare its energy compact goals as part of the UN High-level Dialogue on Energy (HLDE). 

The group has over 17 GW of capacity under construction, including 5 GW of renewable energy projects.  Uninterrupted supply of electricity through environment-friendly energy projects at affordable prices has been the hallmark of NTPC.