India's Adani Partners With Ashok Leyland, Ballard To Make Hydrogen Fueled Electric Truck

India's Adani Enterprises Limited (AEL) said on Tuesday that it has signed an agreement with Ashok Leyland and Canada's Ballard Power to launch a pilot project to develop a hydrogen fuel cell electric truck (FCET) for mining logistics and transportation.

The project led by Adani, will have Ballard supply the fuel cell engine, while Indian truck maker Ashok Leyland will provide vehicle and technical support for the project.

The FCET is scheduled to be launched in India in 2023, the flagship company of Adani Group said in a release.

Hydrogen, made by splitting water with an electrical process called electrolysis, can be used as a fuel. If the devices that do that, electrolysers, are powered by renewable energy, the product is called green hydrogen.

In the next ten years, the Adani Group – led by Asia's richest man Gautam Adani – has plans to invest more than $50 billion in green hydrogen and associated ecosystems for a capacity of up to 3 million tons of green hydrogen annually, AEL said.

The Indian government had recently approved an incentive plan of 174.9 billion rupees ($2.11 billion) to promote green hydrogen and had set green hydrogen consumption targets for some industries earlier this month.

Indian companies such as Reliance Industries, Indian Oil, NTPC, Adani, JSW Energy, ReNew Power and Acme Solar have big plans for green hydrogen.

Adani has a tie-up with French energy company TotalEnergies as part of a deal to form a new green hydrogen project in India.

India plans to go net zero carbon emissions by 2070.

(Reporting by Biplob Kumar Das in Bengaluru; Editing by Shailesh Kuber)