German electrolyser maker Sunfire GmbH will install a 2.6-MW high-temperature electrolyser for green hydrogen production at a Dutch renewable products refinery operated by Neste Oyj (HEL:NESTE).
Sunfire said on Tuesday that in the scope of the EU-funded demonstration project MultiPLHY, it will be installing the world’s first multi-megawatt high-temperature electrolyser in Rotterdam. It has already delivered the first two out of 12 electrolysis modules based on its solid oxide electrolysis cell (SOEC) technology.
Commissioning is scheduled for early next year, at which point the facility will be able to produce over 60 kg of green hydrogen per hour.
Besides Neste and Sunfire, the MultiPLHY consortium also includes French research centre CEA, SMS-group company Paul Wurth and Engie SA.
The electrolyser will be directly integrated into Neste’s refinery processes. The Finnish oil refiner will rely on green hydrogen and Power-to-X technologies on the path to achieving its 2035 target for carbon-neutral production, Sunfire noted.
The announcement about Sunfire’s involvement in the project came a few days after the company said it became one of the first to be granted an “early start to measure” by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action in the ongoing approval procedure for Important Projects of Common European Interest (IPCEI) funding. Sunfire requires the financing so it could industrialise both its SOEC and alkaline electrolysers.
"The funding will allow us to scale much faster, more innovatively and more extensively than we could with our own resources," commented Sunfire CFO Stephan Garabet.
The European Commission's binding approval of the application is still pending within the next weeks.
In early 2022, the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research committed funding of EUR 60 million (USD 61.7m) through the flagship project H2Giga.
"Together with our project partners, we are preparing the series production of our electrolysers on the development side within the framework of H2Giga. The next step is to produce and apply the technologies on industrial scale with the help of IPCEI," Garabet added.
(EUR 1 = USD 1.029)
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Photo: Copyright Neste.
