Indian refiner to bottle water from fuel-cell plant

Mumbai-based Bharat Petroleum (BOM: BPCL.BO) said it plans to break into the bottled water business to capitalize on the byproduct of hydrogen fuel cells.

State-run Bharat has tentative plans for a 1,000-megawatt hydrogen fuel cell plant during the next three to five years.

The refiner said it would produce 1 million metric tons of water with every 1,000 MW of energy from hydrogen fuel cells. Bharat said it could then bottle the purified water and sell it at the company's fueling stations, according to the Business Standard of India.

Bharat received shareholder approval for the bottled water business in the summer.

Local brands comprise nearly 80 percent of India's 200 bottled-water brands. The bottled water industry in India is worth Rs. 1,250 crores ($312 million USD) annually and growing between 10 percent and 25 percent a year, according to industry figures.

The demand is driven by the poor quality and shortages of water in some regions. Some reports say 1,600 Indians die every day because of waterborne diseases.

Southern India is one of the industry’s largest markets, with Chennai alone accounting for a quarter of the industry's revenue.

But the bottled water industry has been criticized for the petroleum used to make the plastic bottles and the water used in production. The bottling process uses two liters of water for every liter bottled, according to the Pacific Institute.

Bharat has several other ventures in cleantech outside fuel cells. The company previously announced plans to build 10MW of windmills in the Maharashtra and Rajasthan regions.

And in September, a Bharat joint venture announced plans to spend Rs 2,200 crore ($480 millio) to grow more than a million acres of jatropha on Indian wasteland in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh (see $480M Indian refinery signals jatropha shift).

Cleantech developments making news in the past 24 hours

• New year money goes to biofuels
• VeruTEK completes new green chemistry remediation project
• Indian company lets drivers opt-in for electric battery

View the last week of cleantech developments here | Subscribe to full feed