Two-day Kerala Smart Mobility Summit, with the theme ‘Moving towards a sustainable future’, begins in city
Two-day Kerala Smart Mobility Summit, with the theme ‘Moving towards a sustainable future’, begins in city
The State government will meet industry players, transporters, including shippers, innovators, and start-ups, among other stakeholders, on November 3 to elicit ideas for developing Kochi into a green energy transport and hydrogen hub of the country. The State is also looking towards harnessing waves and wind along with solar power for clean energy production.
“Kochi has the potential to develop into a futuristic city and transform itself into the Gulf of the future in terms of cheap fuel availability,” said Principal Secretary (Aviation and Metro Transport) A.R. Jyothilal in Kochi on Wednesday. He was speaking on the sidelines of the inauguration of the two-day Kerala Smart Mobility Summit with the theme ‘Moving towards a sustainable future’, organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry.
He said there was hydrogen generation on one side and aggregation and supplies on the other side. According to the official, Kochi already has sufficient demand for hydrogen to make production of the gas economically viable. Fertilizers and Chemicals Travancore (FACT) requires 0.31 lakh tonnes of the gas a year, while Bharat Petroleum Corporation requires another 140 tonnes a day. The viable demand level for hydrogen production will be around one lakh tonnes a year, he said.
Mr. Jyothilal also said that Cochin Shipyard and Cochin Port too could leverage the availability of cheap hydrogen even as an investor had proposed using cold energy from the liquid natural gas terminal in the city to produce 500 tonnes of liquid hydrogen a day. Hydrogen will also be in demand in the aviation sector, and the Cochin International Airport services a large number of flights to make production and sale of hydrogen viable.
EV target
Kerala has set a target of having a million electric vehicles (EV) on its roads by 2025. The target is easily achievable, considering that more than 40,000 EVs are already on the roads, Mr. Jyothilal said. Improvement in technology and the rising number of charging stations will drive the course of the EV market. The official said though the government had taken initiative to establish charging stations, it is time charging stations were set up on public-private partnership mode or private investment models.
Kochi Metro Rail Limited (KMRL) managing director Loknath Behera spoke of the future of the metro system. He said hopefully there would be hydrogen-powered buses on Kochi roads by next year. District Collector Renu Raj was among those who addressed the inaugural session of the summit.
