Thermax enters into green hydrogen market in partnership with FFI

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.

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.

Expressing his thoughts on the collaboration, Ashish Bhandari said, “The collaboration with Fortescue Future Industries is perfectly timed to leverage the massive potential of the Indian green energy market that presents a multitude of opportunities, backed by favorable policies and incentives. Furthermore, the recent approval of the National Green Hydrogen Mission by India’s Union Cabinet, which aims to increase domestic production of green hydrogen to 5 MMT per annum by 2030 and reduce fossil fuel imports by over Rs. 1 lakh crore, is a significant boost. With all these factors working in our favor, we are confident that our association will be successful.”