India should set whatever is the right (energy) course for it to support economic growth: Bryan K Glover

In a freewheeling interaction with SUKALP SHARMA, Glover shares his views on how the energy landscape is evolving for India, the country’s balancing act between conventional fuels and clean energy, and how he sees Honeywell fitting into the country’s future energy landscape. Edited excerpts:

India has been a major importer of crude oil and has been of the view that fossil fuels should not be vilified and investments should continue in that sector. What is your view, considering Honeywell has its feet in both boats—fossil fuels as well as new energy?

If I think specifically about Honeywell UOP, which is the business that supports oil and petrochemicals, we have kind of adopted a phrase that we have called “energy transition that any pace”, meaning that we are continuing to do work in fossil fuels and we are continuing to do work in sustainable technologies as well. Even if the rest of the world is not building a lot of new fossil resources, there are many fossil fuel production facilities that are going to be active for a long time. We are seeing fossil fuels being phased out more rapidly in some places, but it remains a huge part of the energy mix. So, we have to support both (fossil fuels and renewables) because the world cannot afford to have the energy spigot shut off.

India should set whatever is the right (energy) course for it to support its economic growth, and at the pace that is achievable. And fossil fuels are important for India. Investments do need to be made in it because projects take a long time and are expensive. It is important for the government to be able to provide a stable vision of how to progress…and I can see fossil energy as an important part of it. The important thing is not overreacting and doing something that imperils the energy supply.

How do you see your profile in India changing, considering the country is pushing energy transition even as its reliance on fossil fuels is likely to continue for a long time?

Whether it is carbon capture or clean-up of natural gas, whether it is fossil-based refineries or renewable fuels, many of these technologies are very similar. So, our experts can easily flow into the new areas. The same is true in the broader areas of Honeywell, where automation and control systems are being deployed for mega factories to build batteries, electrolysers, etc. It is the same people and a lot of the same capabilities supporting those new areas with new products. The base that Honeywell has developed here in India over the years is very strong with very capable people who can easily pivot into new areas.

I see our footprint, which has been growing in India for a long time, continue to grow. But I see it moving towards sustainability-based applications. About 60 per cent of what we spend on R&D (research and development) across all of Honeywell is focussed on sustainability and sustainable applications of technology. There is tremendous access to talent in India and tremendous opportunity to be able to deploy our products to support the growth of India’s economy.

In terms of specific business areas, how do you look at the growth opportunity? Could you identify a few focus areas for Honeywell’s future in India?

Globally we are focussed on three mega trends, and in those, growth in India is probably expected to be higher than anywhere else. Those areas are aviation, and tremendous growth is already happening in aviation in India. The other area is automation…making smarter and smarter control systems that do more and more of the routine jobs, systems with more embedded knowledge, and more artificial intelligence, so that they can maximise optimisation and uptime, and let the operators do the high-level tasks. I think we will see automation as a big theme in India, as there continues to be rapid industrialisation.

The last is sustainable energy. Energy demand and India is growing faster than most places on the planet. That will continue to be a key enabling theme here in terms of supporting existing fossil-based as well as new renewable-based energy forms.

I think we will see energy needs grow in India, whether it is fossil-based or renewable-based. I know there are a lot of government policies and a lot of companies that are working to meet that demand and to do it as sustainably as possible.

Green hydrogen has become a buzzword globally and India wants to emerge as a leader in that space. Considering Honeywell’s standing in the energy technology space, what are your green hydrogen plans?

We are also working in green hydrogen. We are not planning to build electrolysers but we are doing a lot of work on the catalyst-coated membrane that really is at the heart of PEM (proton exchange membrane) and AEM (anion exchange membrane) electrolysers because we believe that is where the game-changing value will come from. And we also think that it is a technology that is likely to be deployed globally. Without a doubt, there will be companies in India making electrolysers and we hope to be able to supply to them the best-in-class technology for electrolyser membranes.

There has also been a fair bit of talk within India about the potential for carbon capture in connection with thermal energy. We have what we believe are world-leading solutions for post-combustion carbon capture, for instance in coal fired power plants, or pre-combustion technology, which is what might be incorporated into hydrogen production. So, in addition to green hydrogen, if carbon capture and sequestration or conversion of the CO2 gains traction in India, it also opens up the door to employ carbon capture with hydrogen and I think there is a lot of potential there.

In terms of clean energy technology and future fuels, one problem currently is the prohibitive costs. What kind of financial solutions can a large developing country like India look at?

I think one thing that we see already is that the Government of India is already making significant contributions to the growth in areas like green hydrogen and electrification. Investments are also being made in other parts of the world, be it Europe or the United States. With any new technology, it is always going to be more expensive to initially adopt sustainable technologies.

Solar is an example of where we have seen the industry go from power generation that was costlier than fossil fuel-based power generation, to becoming cheaper. So, there is the promise that as technology evolves and improves, costs come down. The most important thing is for governments to support development and deployment of technologies and support companies and universities to continue to evolve the technology. I think what is important is to start the journey, and improving the technology to make it more effective, and increasing its deployment.

How do you see the future energy landscape for a country like India when it comes to different energy sources and technologies, including biofuels and green hydrogen?

I think the energy landscape will change the way we have seen it evolve in other countries as well. There is a range of resources that India has, abundant sunshine in some areas is one thing. Agriculture is another. The idea should be the optimisation of all such value chains. Put in as much solar as you can. Use agriculture (for energy) to the extent that you can without disrupting food supplies. So, I think we will see vegetable oil-based biodiesel and aviation fuel, ethanol-based aviation fuel. You will see electrification of vehicles and of course, green hydrogen. I think in India, as in other countries, we are going to see all of these segments contribute. The demand is so high that it is hard to say that there will be just one or two solutions.