Now hydrogen CNG coming to give cleaner auto fuel to Delhi

Oct 17, 2020

New Delhi: The trial run of Hydrogen-blended CNG (H-CNG) powered city buses will be launched in the national capital next week.

“Indian Oil’s R&D Centre had developed a patented compact reforming process for H-CNG production directly from natural gas. The technology has been successfully proved for its benefits concerning emissions, mileage and durability through extensive studies at a demonstration unit installed at its Faridabad campus,” the Indian Oil Corporation said.

Union Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Dharmendra Pradhan will formally launch the trial run on Tuesday.

“He will inaugurate a compact reformer plant set up by Indian Oil Corporation Ltd (IndianOil) at Rajghat Bus Depot-I of the DTC,” the Indian Oil Corporation said in a statement.

Besides, the company cited recent studies conducted by the Automotive Research Association of India (ARAI), Pune, which have confirmed that 18 per cent H-CNG as fuel ensures 70 per cent reduction in carbon monoxide and 25 per cent reduction in hydrocarbon emissions in heavy-duty BS-IV engines as compared to baseline CNG, besides increasing fuel economy by 4 to 5 per cent.

IOC has set up a semi-commercial plant of 4 tonnes per day capacity at Rajghat Bus Depot-I, along with dispensing infrastructure by Indraprastha Gas Ltd (IGL), for conducting a study on the use of H-CNG fuel in 50 BS-IV compliant CNG buses.

“After the six month trial period, a detailed performance report will be compiled incorporating the fuel economy and emissions data of the trial buses run with CNG and H-CNG fuel mixtures for submission to EPCA/Hon’ble Supreme Court,” the statement said.

“In India’s quest to promote Hydrogen as a clean fuel for the mobility sector, Hydrogen-blended CNG (H-CNG) is emerging as an excellent interim technology for achieving emissions reduction and import substitution.”

The fuel type can be used in existing IC (internal combustion) engines without major modifications in the engine architecture.

In addition, the company said that refuelling of H-CNG blends in vehicles can be achieved with minimum modifications in the infrastructure that is currently under use for dispensing CNG.

Meanwhile Petroleum secretary Tarun Kapoor said HCNG will improve efficiency and reduce emissions drastically.

Speaking the Inaugural Session of ‘Alternative Fuel Technology for Vehicles: A Cure-all for Sustainable Mobility’ organised by PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry in association with CSIDC, Government of Chhattisgarh, Kapoor said India is becoming a leader in CNG, there has been a significant transition with the need to move towards cleaner fuels like CNG, ethanol, biodiesel, and electric vehicles.

He said that we need to ensure that CNG is available and affordable ensuring that vehicles are modelled to incorporate CNG smoothly.

Discussing city gas distribution, he shared that there is significant work happening especially in the infrastructure so that CNG is seamlessly available. “We will be doing a pilot project in Delhi on HCNG that will improve efficiency and reduce emissions drastically,” the secretary said.

Talking about ethanol, he mentioned that by the next year, there would be a jump in the ethanol production and India is planning to introduce E12 and E15 shortly.

Gradually, we will have blended petrol all over the country and moving to a higher percentage. We have to make pure ethanol available that is happening in several countries and, some countries also have multi-fuel vehicles like Brazil. There is a pilot project which will be implemented for pure ethanol that will take place in Pune shortly, he said.

Kapoor deliberated about the need to make biodiesel affordable and freely available. On the sector of compressed biogas, he discussed that it’s an area of focus as it’s important for the agriculture sector and, there is a huge source available in the country. He also discussed the projects undertaken by the government for setting up biogas plants that will help in producing a large quantity of biogas that will also flow in the city gas distribution network making it available along with CNG.

On Electric Vehicles, the oil marketing companies are available to facilitate and, we are looking forward to better swapping coming to the petrol station, retail outlets, putting up electric charging. We look forward to work closely with the industry so that we can go forward, said Kapoor.
IANS