German government to support Sunfire’s hydrogen technologies

Thanks to its potential for decarbonising energy-intensive industries, green hydrogen has evolved from a contentious ‘new hope’ to a fixed building block of the energy transition. It is no surprise then that demand is rocketing for electrolysers, which split water into hydrogen using renewable electricity. According to the plans, installed capacity in the EU alone is set to rise from the current 0.2 GW to 40 GW by 2030.

Against this background, Sunfire – one of the world’s leading developers and producers of electrolysers – is rapidly expanding its manufacturing capacities. Together with partners from research and industry, the German-based company is preparing its technologies for industrial production at GW-scale. To this end, the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) is providing a grant of €60 million for the lead project H2Giga.

The funding commitment will accelerate time-to-market of innovative high-temperature electrolysers (SOEC). Under the leadership of Sunfire, 15 associated partners will be receiving €33 million to establish manufacturing processes and optimize systems. By using off-heat from industrial processes, Sunfire’s SOEC electrolysers require up to 30% less electricity from renewable energy sources than other technologies to produce 1 kg of hydrogen.

Sunfire is embarking on the challenging path to GW-scale production together with several partners the company has already been working with on various projects in the past. For example, the company will be drawing on the expertise of XENON Automatisierungstechnik GmbH to help set up a pilot line for automated production. Both companies are already collaborating in making SOEC electrolysers for the refinery of fuel producer Neste in Rotterdam.

But the development of SOEC technology is not the sole target of support: BMBF is also providing funding for the industrialisation of pressurised alkaline electrolysers. Although these robust systems have already proved themselves for decades in industrial hydrogen projects, they have not yet been manufactured in series production. Sunfire and its eight associated partners have been granted total funding of €27 million to transform the production of this technology to GW-scale.

The commitment from the German Government under the programme ‘Wasserstoffrepublik Deutschland’ (The Hydrogen Republic of Germany) is designed to accelerate the development and expansion of technologies to enable energy-intensive industries to produce and use green hydrogen fast and at scale. In the lead project H2Giga, approximately 30 independent alliances are now working on transforming electrolysis technologies to the GW-scale. In addition to the public funding, Sunfire will also be investing significant amounts of its own funds in the industrialisation process.

Read the article online at: https://www.globalhydrogenreview.com/hydrogen/06012022/german-government-to-support-sunfires-hydrogen-technologies/