Groundbreaking Ceremony for first HCNG Station held

New Delhi, : Indian Oil Corporation Limited (IOCL) and Indraprastha Gas Limited (IGL) today held ground breaking ceremony for setting up 4 tonnes per day compact reformer based Hydrogen CNG (HCNG) production unit Rajghat-1 depot of Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC).

The foundation stone of this first HCNG Station was laid by Dr. Bhure Lal, Chairman, Environment Pollution (Prevention & Control) Authority (EPCA), in the august presence of Ms. Sunita Narain, Member EPCA, Sh. Sanjiv Singh, Chairman, IOCL, Mr. Gajendra Singh, Director (Marketing), GAIL (India) Ltd. & Chairman, IGL, Dr. SSV Ramakumar, Director (R&D), IOCL, Sh. Manoj Kumar, Chairman, Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC), and Mr. E.S.Ranganathan, Managing Director, IGL.

In his inaugural address, Dr. Bhure Lal expressed confidence that this pilot project would be successful and would be expanded across the country in the times to come. Expressing concern over rising air pollution due to increase in the number of vehicles plying on the road, he stressed that it is now a question of human survival and new technology needs to be adopted to improve air quality. He congratulated IOCL and IGL for having taken the initiative to start the project on HCNG.

In her address, Ms. Sunita Narain termed the day as the first day towards hydrogen economy conducive to India. She related that trails on hydrogen fuel in California (USA) and Japan had turned out to be expensive. However, this small step of mixing hydrogen with CNG has the potential of being a solution to pollution related problems as well as energy security for the country.

Sh. Sanjiv Singh termed HCNG as a tailor made solution for addressing pollution related concerns in the country especially Delhi. He added that the fuel can provide a perfect transition for existing BS IV fitted engines to BS VI as the emissions from hydrogen spiked CNG would be close to BS VI standards.

Mr Gajender Singh termed the project as an effort to save the planet for the future generations. Talking about initial resistance to CNG a couple of decades back, he added that now City Gas Distribution business is spreading in every corner of the country, with Delhi NCR region contributing in a big way.

Earlier, Mr SSV Ramkumar welcomed the guests and outlined the history and salient features of the project.

As per the directive of Hon’ble Supreme Court of India, IOCL and IGL have collaborated to put up this first semi-commercial plant as a pilot project for conducting the study on the use of HCNG fuel in 50 BS IV compliant CNG buses in Delhi. The plant will be commissioned by November 2019 and the performance report will be submitted to Hon’ble Supreme Court after the trial for six months thereafter. EPCA was authorized to monitor by Hon’ble Supreme Court.

Hydrogen spiked CNG when used in an engine in place of CNG results in clean combustion; thereby reduce harmful emissions and improve the fuel economy. IOC R&D has developed a patented Compact Reformer for production of HCNG fuel from natural gas. The fuel when tested at Automotive Research Association of India (ARAI), resulted in the 70% reduction of carbon monoxide and 25% reduction in hydro carbon emissions as compared to baseline CNG. It is estimated that this compact reforming process is 30% more cost effective compared to physical blending of hydrogen in CNG for deriving the same benefits.

Highlighting commitment of IGL towards the project, Mr Ranganathan thanked all the stakeholders for their continued support in making clean fuels accessible to common man to improve their standard of living.