Pune: Thermax Limited, a leading energy and environment solutions provider, and Fortescue Future Industries (FFI), an Australia-based green energy and green technology company, have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to explore green hydrogen projects – including new manufacturing facilities – in India. Under the MoU, Thermax and FFI plan to explore opportunities to jointly develop fully integrated green hydrogen projects for commercial and industrial customers in India. The production of green hydrogen at an industrial scale would be a major step forward in decarbonising hard-to-abate industries in India, such as refineries, fertilisers and steel.
The MoU between Thermax and FFI also contemplates the potential collaboration of the parties in the development of new manufacturing facilities to support green energy projects in India. The Performance Linked Incentive (PLI scheme), under India’s National Green Hydrogen Mission, could be leveraged for setting up any new manufacturing capacity. In addition to meeting the domestic requirements, electrolysers and subsystems could potentially be used for export internationally. Fortescue Metals Group’s experience in managing large-scale projects in its iron ore business provides FFI – Fortescue’s green energy arm – with a strong platform to expand into manufacturing projects in green hydrogen.
FFI is in the process of constructing a world-leading Green Energy Manufacturing Centre in Gladstone, Queensland. The first phase of the project involves the construction of an electrolyser manufacturing facility, with a targeted initial output capacity of 2GW per annum. Thermax will bring its vast experience in EPC and supply chain to the collaboration.