The government has approved three pilot projects to use hydrogen in steel production under the National Green Hydrogen Mission. The government will provide ₹3.47 billion (~$41.28 million) as financial support for these pilot projects, which will likely be commissioned in the next three years.

The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) had issued guidelines for implementing pilot projects in the steel sector under this Mission.

The program aims to identify advanced technologies to use green hydrogen in steelmaking through pilot projects, validate the technical feasibility and performance of green hydrogen and its derivatives, evaluate the performance of green hydrogen and its derivatives based on low-carbon iron and steel, support the deployment and demonstrate the safe operations of green hydrogen and its derivatives on low-carbon iron and steel.

Proposals were called for three components:

• Pilot project to produce (Direct Reduced Iron (DRI) using 100% hydrogen using a vertical shaft
• Use of hydrogen in blast furnace to reduce coal/coke consumption
• Injection of hydrogen in vertical-based shaft-making unit

After evaluating the proposals, MNRE authorized three pilot projects in the steel sector:

• Matrix Gas and Renewables (Consortium members: Gensol Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Bhubaneswar, Metsol AB, Sweden) with a pilot project capacity of 50 ton-per-day (TPD)
• Simplex Castings (Consortium members: BSBK, Ten Eight Investment, IIT Bhilai) with a pilot project capacity of 40 TPD
• Steel Authority of India (Ranchi) with a project capacity of 3,200 TPD

MECON, a government of India enterprise offering design, engineering, consultancy, and contracting services, recently issued a request for proposal for pilot projects on green hydrogen injection in existing blast furnaces and DRI units.

Jindal Steel & Power and Jindal Renewables said they are investing in green hydrogen production for steel making in Angul, Odisha. JSPL plans to incorporate green hydrogen into its DRI units.