Indian developer receives first $140m tranche of funding for green hydrogen project in Oman
ACME has secured a total of $540m for the $750m facility, for which site works have already begun
Indian renewables developer ACME has received the first $140m tranche of funding from its backers for its 300MW green hydrogen and ammonia project in Oman, which has secured the equivalent of $540m to date.
The project, which will cost $750m in total, already has a binding offtake agreement in place with Norwegian fertiliser supplier Yara for the entire 100,000 tonnes of annual production capacity in the first phase.
Site works have already begun on the project, which is located in the special economic zone in the port town of Duqm, and is set to start operations in Q1 2027.
ACME had in July 2023 secured a 40bn-rupee ($470m) loan from Indian government-owned infrastructure bank REC for the green hydrogen and ammonia plant. Hydrogen Insight has reached out to confirm which other lenders are backing the project.
German auditor TÜV Rheinland had back in 2022 pre-certified the molecules produced at the plant based on the project design as qualifying with EU’s definition of “renewable fuels of non-biological origin” (RFNBOs), which would allow its supply to meet European industry and transport quotas.
However, since then, the EU has officially selected three certficiation programmes — CertifHy, ISCC EU, and REDCert — to designate whether green hydrogen and its derivatives meet the standard of an RFNBO.
As such, although TÜV Rheinland has been accredited to certify RFNBOs according to the CertifHy standard, it is likely that ACME’s project in Duqm will have to be re-certified once it begins to produce molecules.
Earlier this year, Chinese electrolyser manufacturer Sungrow announced that ACME had booked a firm order for the majority of the Duqm project’s capacity, although it did not provide a firm figure for how many of its 5MW units had been ordered.
