Indian utility Torrent Power has submitted documents to the country’s government outlining plans for a72bn-rupee ($858m) investment into a green hydrogen and ammonia facility in Gujarat state, as well as 570 billion rupees ($6.8bn) towards 10GW of new renewables by 2030.
The company plans to build a plant capable of producing 100,000 tonnes of NH3 per year in its first phase, implying 18,000 tonnes a year of H2 a year as feedstock for the chemical.
At the beginning of this year, Torrent Power had been awarded subsidies over three years for this exact annual hydrogen production capacity from India’s first auction for green-hydrogen incentives.
Torrent Power had successfully requested 25 rupees ($0.30) per kilogram in the first year, 34.1 rupees ($0.41) in the second, and 27.57 rupees ($0.33) in the third.
The firm had also in January signed a memorandum of understanding with the government of Gujarat to build the project in the coastal Indian state. The plant will pursue both exports and domestic offtake, although no binding agreements have yet been signed.
The utility plans to bring the green ammonia facility — which it aims to eventually scale up to 450,000 tonnes of NH3 a year — on line in the first quarter of 2027.
India’s hydrogen auction set a strict deadline for its winners to commission their projects within 36 months of the letter of award, with penalties slashing the incentives for each day of delay and a total cancellation of payments if the plant is not on line after six months of delay.
Torrent Power is also pursuing a separate pilot project to blend 2.5% green H2 into the gas grid of the northern Indian city of Gorakhpur, which the company had told shareholders back in July would be commissioned shortly.
