Fossil fuels, including oil and gas, have ruled the energy landscape for decades, and have pretty much dictated global economic growth trends. The high dependence of air, road, rail and water transport, industries and even households on oil and gas for meeting their energy needs has made these fuels some of the most important contributors to the economic development of nations and a core factor in global geopolitics. However, a worldwide push to address climate change issues, price volatility in oil and gas markets, the lingering demand-supply imbalance owing to successive waves of the pandemic and, most recently, supply chain issues owing to the Russia-Ukraine conflict have changed the energy ecosystem forever.
Clean energy solutions such as solar, wind, biofuels, green hydrogen, storage and electric mobility are now gaining attention on the global stage owing to their increasing cost-competitiveness and stable long-term prices. These solutions help reduce countries’ oil and gas imports and ensure energy security for the future. Further, large investors have started focusing on expanding their clean energy portfolios and financing companies in this space. On their part, environment-conscious consumers are opting for electric vehicles (EVs) in place of conventional vehicles, electric furnaces for their industries, and rooftop solar for their homes.
With cost economics and international pressure on climate mitigation driving clean energy growth, companies in the oil and gas sector are also redefining their expansion strategies and aligning them with the new reality. These companies have massive infrastructure in the areas of offshore and onshore exploration, refineries, pipelines and transport systems, and have energy-intensive operations. Thus, they are ideal sites for clean energy integration. With the advanced technologies available today, these companies are working towards reducing their conventional captive power consumption and even moving towards round-the-clock renewable power procurement. Green hydrogen adoption, electric mobility, and carbon capture utilisation and sequestration (CCUS) are other areas of interest for oil and gas companies to reduce their direct and indirect carbon emissions.
Indian oil and gas majors are also keeping up with the global trends and investing heavily in clean energy to diversify their energy businesses and reduce their climate impact.
This article explores the clean energy initiatives and activities of four such Indian companies and the outlook for the future…
Indian Oil Corporation Limited
State-owned energy major Indian Oil Corporation Limited (IOCL) is present across various forms of energy including oil, gas and alternative energy. It is one of the leading public sector companies in India in terms of its green energy initiatives. To make its portfolio greener, the company has been exploring different clean energy verticals across the solar, wind, storage, electric mobility, green hydrogen and biofuel segments. IOCL expects to meet 85 per cent of the power requirements of the new projects in its refineries through renewable energy. It already has roughly 240 MW of installations comprising 70 MW of solar and 168 MW of wind power as of March 2022. To further incorporate renewables in its energy mix, IOCL recently established a joint venture (JV) company with NTPC through which it plans to meet the extra power requirements of its refineries by utilising round-the-clock renewable energy of up to 650 MW by end 2024.
Moreover, the company has been promoting solar power deployment at its retail outlets, with 1,166 such establishments having already been solarised. It has also released a few solar power tenders in recent months to increase its solar uptake. In June 2022, the company invited bids for the implementation of a 1 MW grid-connected captive solar power project in Jaipur, Rajasthan. Prior to that, in May 2022, it issued a request for proposal for consulting services to set up a 2.25 MW solar project at its Jabalpur LPG bottling plant. In September 2021, it floated a tender in two categories to empanel vendors to develop solar projects at its various project sites and retail outlets across India.
IOCL is also actively exploring the green hydrogen option and has made some announcements in this regard. In April 2022, it signed a binding term sheet for the formation of a JV company with Larsen & Toubro (L&T) and ReNew Power to develop India’s nascent green hydrogen sector. IOCL and L&T signed another binding term sheet to form a JV to manufacture and sell green hydrogen electrolysers. Prior to this, in November 2021, IOCL invited expressions of interest for setting up green hydrogen generation units at two of its refineries – at Mathura in Uttar Pradesh and Panipat in Haryana. The plants will have installed capacities of 5,000 tonnes per annum (tpa) and 2,000 tpa respectively and will be set up on a build-own-operate basis.
IOCL has been active in promoting the biofuel segment as well. It recently inaugurated a 2G ethanol plant at its Panipat refinery, which will use rice straw as feedstock. Further, as of July 2022, it has awarded over 2,374 letters of intent under the government’s Sustainable Alternative Towards Affordable Transportation scheme for compressed biogas. The company is at present marketing compressed biogas from 18 plants spread across the country. Going a step further towards the decarbonisation of transport, IOCL is working to expand the EV ecosystem and targets to set up EV charging stations at 10,000 fuel stations over the next three years and deploy these in public parking spaces at airports and tourist centres. Realising the importance of advanced battery technologies in the clean mobility space, it has collaborated with Israeli company Phinergy Limited to commercialise the aluminium-air battery technology in India.
Oil and Natural Gas Corporation
The largest crude oil and natural gas company in India, Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Limited (ONGC) is focusing on diversifying into renewable energy sources. It is exploring various opportunities in not just renewables such as solar and wind but also upcoming energy segments such as green hydrogen and green ammonia. The company has set a target of producing a minimum of 10 GW of renewable power by 2040 and has signed several agreements with different companies to expand its clean energy portfolio.
In July 2022, it signed an MoU with Greenko ZeroC Private Limited to jointly pursue opportunities in various green energy segments including renewables, green hydrogen and green ammonia. The JV plans to set up more than 5 GW of solar and wind power capacity, which will be integrated with Greenko’s pumped storage facility to ensure round-the-clock renewables for green hydrogen generation. Further, in April 2022, it signed an MoU with Norwegian state-owned energy giant Equinor ASA to partner in various clean energy verticals including renewable energy, low carbon fuels and CCUS. Prior to that, in December 2021, the company signed an MoU with the Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI) to collaborate on renewable energy projects across various segments including solar, wind, green hydrogen, energy storage and the EV value chain.
Apart from these agreements, the company has issued a few tenders in recent months in the solar space, including those for a 15 MWac grid-connected solar power project at its Vagra site in Bharuch district and a 5 MW solar project at its Hazira project site. Further, with the company’s experience in offshore infrastructure projects, it is exploring project opportunities in the offshore wind space as well. It is carrying out a study with NTPC for offshore wind deployment at its vast acreage along the country’s extensive coastline.
Due to the carbon-intensive nature of the oil and gas sector, ONGC is also actively exploring the carbon capture potential to tackle emissions. Thus, apart from its MoU with Equinor, ONGC is working with IOCL to set up a CCUS project. This facility will use the captured carbon dioxide from IOCL’s Koyali refinery for enhanced oil recovery from the Gandhar oil field’s depleted reservoir. In addition, ONGC is working on implementing India’s maiden geothermal field development project in Ladakh and has signed an MoU with the Union Territory of Ladakh and Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council in February 2021.
Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited
Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL), one of the top oil marketing companies in India, is moving towards greener energy sources and plans to become a net zero company by 2040 in Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions. To this end, the company has signed an MoU with SECI to build 10 GW of renewable energy capacity by 2040, spread across the solar, wind, electric mobility, hydrogen, and waste-to-energy segments. It has also recently signed agreements with the state governments of Uttarakhand and Odisha to develop the renewable energy sector in these states. Further, to incorporate renewables at its refineries, the company has recently issued a tender for setting up a 14 MW grid-connected solar power project at its Bina refinery in Madhya Pradesh on a turnkey basis and is also working in the bioethanol and compressed biogas segments.
With its large pipeline infrastructure and experience in the oil industry, BPCL is actively exploring opportunities in the green hydrogen space. In July 2022, it invited bids for a 5 MW electrolyser and associated system that can be used for the production of green hydrogen and blending of hydrogen with natural gas in the city gas distribution (CGD) network. BPCL plans to blend green hydrogen with natural gas in the Ahmednagar and Aurangabad CGD networks. It has also partnered with the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre to scale up the alkaline electrolyser technology for the generation of green hydrogen. Further, in November 2021, BPCL announced plans to set up a green hydrogen plant at its refinery in Bina.
With growing traction in the EV space, BPCL is investing significantly in setting up EV charging infrastructure across the country. In April 2022, it announced plans to invest Rs 2 billion in this space. BPCL will set up 100 fast EV charging corridors with 2,000 stations along the busiest 100 national highways in this fiscal year. In February 2022, the company launched its first EV charging corridor along the Chennai-Trichy-Madurai highway. The second corridor is coming up on the Kochi-Salem section of National Highway 47 and the third corridor on the Mumbai-Bengaluru highway. The company has plans to offer EV charging stations at around 7,000 energy stations over the next five years. It has already signed an agreement with automakers such as Hero Motors and MG Motors for collaborating in this space and with Bounce Infinity for partnering in the nascent battery swapping space.
Reliance Industries Limited
One of the largest Indian multinational conglomerates, Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) is present in many diverse businesses including energy, petrochemicals and natural gas. Recently, the company forayed into the clean energy space in a big way. RIL has set an ambitious target of achieving net zero carbon emissions by 2035 and is working towards establishing itself as a top contender in various clean energy verticals including renewables generation, solar module manufacturing, energy storage, green hydrogen and fuel cells, and electric mobility.
RIL is building the massive Dhirubhai Ambani Green Energy Giga Complex, spread over an area of 5,000 acres, in Jamnagar. This will be among the largest integrated renewable energy manufacturing facilities in the world and will have four gigafactories: an integrated solar PV module factory, an advanced battery energy storage factory, a green hydrogen electrolyser factory, and a fuel cell factory. In October 2021, RIL announced its plans to generate 400,000 tonnes of green hydrogen using about 3 GW of solar energy at its proposed electrolyser gigafactory in Jamnagar.
RIL is pursuing its renewable and clean energy initiatives mainly through its wholly owned subsidiary, Reliance New Energy Solar Limited. It has made a series of acquisitions in recent months to give it a headstart and establish itself as a leading player in the clean energy space. Some of its recent investments and acquisitions are REC Solar, Faradion, LithiumWerks, skyTran, Ambri, Sterling & Wilson, NexWaf and Stiesdal. A renewable energy project management and construction division and a renewable energy project finance division are also being set up by the company.
RIL has proposed extensive investments in Gujarat over a span of 10-15 years to set up a 100 GW renewable energy power plant and for green hydrogen ecosystem development to make the state net zero and carbon-free. It is also scouting for land for a 100 GW renewable energy power project in Kutch, Banaskantha, and Dholera in consultation with the Gujarat government. With its extensive experience in the oil and gas sector, the company is also planning a massive foray into green hydrogen and plans to achieve a $1 per kg cost of green hydrogen in one decade, also known as the “1-1-1” target. As a new entrant, it has made considerable headway in the solar manufacturing space and has been selected as a beneficiary under the production-linked incentive scheme for solar panel manufacturing.
Further, Reliance BP Mobility Limited (RBML), operating under the brand Jio-bp, is a fuel and mobility JV between RIL and bp, which provides advanced mobility solutions and alternative fuelling options to its customers in addition to marketing conventional fuels. RBML sets up EV charging points and battery swapping stations through collaborations with customers such as real estate companies and home delivery platforms, as well as with automakers such as TVS Motors, MG Motors and Mahindra.
The way forward
India has witnessed massive growth in the renewable energy space and has been an investment hotspot for many local and foreign investors including traditional oil and gas companies. Thus, apart from domestic players, many international oil and gas giants have made sizeable investments in the growing clean energy sector in India over the years. For instance, British BP’s investment Lightsource BP has been a long-term financier in India’s clean energy space. Similarly, Malaysian company PETRONAS made its maiden foray into the renewable energy business in April 2019, with the acquisition of Amplus Energy Solutions Pte Limited. Then, in 2020, TotalEnergies acquired a 20 per cent stake in Adani Green Energy Limited (AGEL) and formed a 50-50 JV with AGEL, into which AGEL transferred its operational solar assets. Most recently, Shell’s subsidiary Shell Overseas Investment B.V. completed its acquisition of Solenergi Power Private Limited and the Sprng Energy group of companies from Actis.
The increasing investments and initiatives of oil and gas majors in the green energy space point to their long-term intent to clean up this polluting sector. No doubt, oil and gas will remain a valuable contributor to the overall economic progress of any nation and its complete phase-out may not be possible in the short term. However, it is encouraging to see that these companies are making serious efforts to adopt clean energy solutions in a big way.
