Adani New Industry Ltd (ANIL) teamed up with TotalEnergies to invest $50 billion in green hydrogen, the deal was announced on Tuesday. French giant TotalEngeries will buy a quarter of the equity in ANIL, part of Adani’s eponymous group. The company will invest a set amount for a period of over ten years.
With this deal, Gautam Adani, Chairman of Adani Group, believes that the company will produce the least expensive green hydrogen and the zero-emission fuel that can propel the world’s decarbonisation drive but has to be produced in a way that makes it commercially viable.
Adani is not alone in the quest. The search for the cheapest hydrogen has brought the country’s two richest industrialists face-to-face. Mukesh Ambani, with whom Adani is swapping the position of Asia’s second-richest person, is also working on the same project. In January, he announced a $ 75 billion push in renewables infrastructure, in which green hydrogen is said to have pride of place. Last year, the Reliance industries Chairman discussed producing low-cost hydrogen (approximately $ 1 a kg). This is 60% lower than the current rate. He said Reliance will “aggressively pursue” the $ 1 per kg target and “achieve it well before the turn of this decade”.
In 2021, Total Energies picked up a 20% stake in Adani Green Energy Ltd., the renewable power company of the Adani Group. In 2020, TotalEnergies and Adani formed a 50-50 joint venture at an enterprise value of Rs 17,385 crore for 2.3 Gw solar assets. Talking about 2019, TotalEnergies had acquired 37.4% in Adani Gas and 50% in the Dharma LNG project.
“This future production capacity of 1 million tonnes per annum of green hydrogen will be a major step in increasing TotalEnergies’ share of new decarbonised molecules including biofuels, biogas, hydrogen, and e-fuels to 25 percent of its energy production and sales by 2050,” said Patrick Pouyanné, Chairman and CEO of TotalEnergies.
