Jakson Green To Set Up First 4G Ethanol Project For NTPC

Jakson Green Pvt., the renewable energy arm of Jakson Group, has tied up with NTPC Ltd. to set up the world’s first and largest 4G ethanol project for the latter’s Lara Thermal Plant in Chattisgarh.

The project will be developed by NTPC Netra and Jakson Green will be the engineering, procurement and construction partner.

Jakson will design, build and operate a carbon capture plant, produce green hydrogen through electrolysis and finally convert the captured carbon and green hydrogen—the flue gases—into 4G ethanol through a fermentation process, Bikesh Ogra, managing director and chief executive officer of Jakson Green, told NDTV Profit in an interview.

The project has given the company access to multiple transformative technologies from Lanzatech and Veolia, he said. It got associated with carbon clean and microbial technology, which is not available with more than three or four players in the world, and electrolyser technology. "This gave us partnership for these technologies," Ogra said.

The plant will produce 10 metric tonnes per day of 4G ethanol that can also be used as a feedstock for sustainable aviation fuel, he said.

The plant will capture 25 tonnes of carbon dioxide and produce 3 tonnes of hydrogen from a 7.5 MW electrolyser.

The cost of setting up the pilot project would be between Rs 260 crore and Rs 300 crore and will increase as the capacity increases in the future.

“We hope to take the capacity of 4G ethanol to 100–150 metric tonnes per day in the near future; that would also make the produce commercially viable... Since 4G ethanol is crucial for achieving India’s ambitious ethanol blending target of 20% by 2025–26, we want to be at the forefront and contribute substantially to that,” Ogra said.

The company is separately setting up additional green hydrogen, methanol, and ammonia projects—some in collaboration with NTPC itself—to produce a combined capacity of 8,500 metric tonnes of green hydrogen and its derivatives by 2027, Ogra said. “The world’s largest methanol project will be commissioned in the next 45 days."

Cumulative investments on these projects would be around Rs 700 crore, he said.

The company also has around 4.5 GW of renewable energy assets in pipeline, some constructed and some under various stages of construction. “We aim to spend another Rs 3,500 crore on setting up these renewable assets,” Ogra said.

The green energy producer is also weighing options for an initial public offering in the next 24 months, he said.