Umwelt Energy, a Denmark-based company, will invest $850 million in Tamil Nadu to build a green methanol plant in the State, the company’s Chief Executive Officer, Alexander Eriksen, told businessline on Wednesday. 

He said that the 2,000-odd acres of land needed for the plant has been organised. While he did not wish to disclose the location of the plant yet, it is understood that it will come up in southern Tamil Nadu. 

Saibaba Vutukuri, Managing Director, Umwelt Energy India, said that the plant would be equipped to produce 1 lakh tonnes-per-year of green methanol. He said it would be a fully integrated plant, starting from 500 MW of wind-solar hybrid plants which would supply electricity to an electrolyser to produce green hydrogen. The green hydrogen would be reacted with carbon dioxide to form methanol. 

Eriksen and Vutukuri were here as part of an energy delegation that visited the IIT Madras Research Park here, along with His Royal Highness, Federik, the Crown Prince of Denmark on Wednesday. The delegation also took part in a conference on  ‘next generation fuels’. 

“Our project platforms integrate renewable power generation, electrolysis plants for green hydrogen, and eFuel synthesis plants for methanol, ammonia, kerosine and gasoline,” says the company’s website. Off-takers for our eFuel products will include maritime and aviation customers, while heavy industry players can abate their CO2 emissions using the green hydrogen we produce, it says.  

ACME needs 20,000 acres 

Meanwhile, it is learnt that ACME Cleantech Solutions, which has announced its intentions to put up a 1.1 mt green ammonia plant married to 5 GW of solar power capacity in the Tuticorin district of Tamil Nadu – the company is putting up an exactly identical plant in Oman – would need 20,000 acres of land to house its ambitions in Tamil Nadu.