JCB eyes India for hydrogen engines

livemint.com:

agricultural equipment. India is already a large producer of diesel engines to meet JCB’s global needs, and it would take up the manufacture of even hydrogen engines once the technology is mastered and put into JCB machines, chairman Lord Bamford said. “We make engines in India.

Every day, we make 200 engines at our plant near Delhi. And if we were making hydrogen engines for commercial use, we would be making them in India as well," Bamford said, stressing the need to develop infrastructure for producing hydrogen fuel. India continues to be the most important market for JCB, where it has invested more proportionately than any other global operation and is accounting for almost a quarter of its global revenues.

In the hydrogen initiative, it has already invested over £100 million in the UK to master the technology and make it fit for its range of construction equipment. A similar investment may be considered in India to scale up existing production plants to build hydrogen-powered construction equipment. The biggest challenge for hydrogen-powered equipment is the availability of the fuel itself.

“India is endowed with sun and water resources, the two key elements required for producing hydrogen. Once the fuel infrastructure improves, JCB would be ready with its green solutions for the growing industry here," Bamford said. He said JCB would install a small electrolyzer plant at its existing engine facility at Ballabhgarh that would produce enough hydrogen to test and run equipment prototypes using its proprietary hydrogen combustion engine.