Indian Oil, the country's largest refiner and fuel retailer is inviting bids to procure 15 Polymer Electrolyte Membrane (PEM) fuel cell buses. This project is the first-ever attempt in the country to address all the aspects of hydrogen-based mobility as the ultimate green option.

SM Vaidya, Chairman, Indian Oil said, "Indian Oil has been pioneering the hydrogen efforts in the country and this exercise is a part of a bigger project which aims at addressing all aspects of the hydrogen value chain." Vaidya also informed that this venture is being supported partially by the hydrogen corpus fund of the Union Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas.

SSV Ramakumar, Director (R&D), Indian Oil informed that the fuel cell buses would be evaluated in collaboration with the selected OEM partner through a wide-scale field validation exercise in Delhi-NCR on a structured scientific format.

One of the key aspects of this project is that the fuel cell stack/system technology would be indigenously developed and manufactured in the spirit of AatmaNirbhar Bharat, thus accelerating the creation of a local ecosystem to support further activities in the hydrogen energy domain.

To facilitate the hydrogen supply for refuelling these buses, Indian Oil is also setting up demo units of close to one tonne per day production capacity for different pathways to produce hydrogen, at its state-of-the-art R&D Centre in Faridabad.