India’s Essar Group will invest an estimated $3.62 billion over the next four years to set up a green hydrogen plant in the western state of Gujarat, Essar Capital director, Prashant Ruia said in a statement on Monday, June 17.
He said that the project to be implemented by Essar Future Energy plans to develop 1 gigawatt (GW) of hydrogen capacity along with associated green molecules capacity of 1 million mt per year at Jamnagar, Gujarat.
Essar will use 4.5 GW of renewable energy from a sister concern Essar Renewables to split water molecules to produce hydrogen and oxygen.
"The idea is to create green molecules that can be transported directly rather than green ammonia. Because you carry green ammonia and then you convert it into hydrogen. That cost is very high. So, we are trying to build a complex which can make green molecules from hydrogen and largely in the biofuels space and export that," Ruia said.