Country's first waste-to-hydrogen plant to be set up in Pune, said official

The country's first solid waste-to-hydrogen plant will be set up in Pune at a cost of over Rs 430 crore, an official said on Tuesday.

The plant will be set up by sustainability solutions provider TheGreenBillions Ltd (TGBL), who has

entered into a 30-year-long agreement with Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC).

It will treat 350 tonnes of solid garbage every day by next year, TGBL chairman and founder Prateek Kanakia told PTI here.

"Our plan is to produce 10 tonnes of hydrogen daily from 350 tonnes of solid waste. We are setting up the plant at Hadapsar Industrial Estate in Pune. This is the first attempt in India to extract hydrogen from waste," he added.

The company will invest Rs 350 crore in setting up the plant and an additional Rs 82 crore will be spent to construct the storage facility and logistics support, Kanakia said.

The PMC will Rs 347 per tonne to TGBL as tipping fee to treat the waste, he added.

"The first 10 tonne reactor will be installed by November 2023 and the target to complete the entire plant is November 2024," Kanakia said.

For the Pune plant PSU firm Broadcast Engineering Consultants India Ltd (BECIL) will provide the project management consulting and Variate Pune Waste to Energy Pvt Ltd, a wholly-owned subsidiary of TGBL, will implement the project.

"The refuse derived fuel from the waste will be utilised to generate hydrogen using plasma gasification technology. We got technological support from the Bhabha Atomic Research Institute and the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru," Kanakia said.

The project aims to demonstrate the technological and financial feasibility of waste to hydrogen generation, he added.

Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways, Nitin Gadkari recently said that hydrogen is the fuel of the future and can be got from municipal waste.

Kanakia said that TGBL is discussing with other state municipalities across the country to implement and set up similar plants in the future.

"We are looking at partnering with cash rich municipal corporations anywhere in India. In fact, we want to join hands with Guwahati Municipal Corporation under a public-private-partnership model," he added.