Hydrogen+. ITM Power has established itself as the leader in technologies related to the production of green hydrogen. Can you present your PEM membrane electrolyzer to us?
Lucas Bertrand. Since the creation of ITM Power in 2001, we have developed electrolysis technology called “PEM” using a proton exchange membrane. Today, our largest electrolyzer in operation has a power of 10 megawatts. Phase 1 of this project was inaugurated in July 2021 at the Shell refinery site in Wesseling, Germany. Thanks to funding of 32 million euros from the European Climate Agency, we are launching phase 2 to deploy a 100 MW electrolyser. We have also contracted two other 100 MW projects which should be installed in 2024 and 2026.
With these projects, ITM Power demonstrates that it is possible to deploy high-power PEM electrolyzers, and that this technology is just as mature as its alkaline competitor.
Indeed, PEM offers several major advantages: first, its response dynamics (less than 2 seconds) makes it possible to respond to the intermittency of renewable energies. Additionally, PEM systems are more compact because they operate with higher current densities. In addition, PEM electrolysis does not use substances harmful to the environment (potassium hydroxide) as for alkaline; The PEM electrolyte is a polymer membrane, a physical barrier that truly separates oxygen from hydrogen. There is therefore no need to regularly purge the system with nitrogen, unlike alkaline which, for 100 MW electrolysers, requires the installation of real nitrogen production plants, which complicates the process. Finally, if there is a cost gap, it continues to narrow. As a result, many projects now integrate PEM technology. This is the case in Leuna, Germany, where we are installing a 24 MW electrolyser operated by Linde, with whom we have created a joint venture for the deployment of large electrolysers. In 2023, we will deploy, again with Linde, a 24 MW electrolyser for the Yara ammonia production plant in Norway. These examples demonstrate once again that PEM electrolysis can be more competitive than alkaline technology.
For what types of markets does ITM Power develop its electrolyzers?
We work in three markets. First there is mobility, the most mature market, but also the smallest. We have now deployed around fifteen stations with electrolyzers. Our largest station, in Birmingham, is 3 MW to refuel hydrogen buses, trucks and cars. We also installed the hydrogen bus station in the city of Pau in 2019, and are developing solutions for heavy mobility (trucks, trains, boats).
Then there is the industrial market: with the obligation to reduce their CO emissions2 by 40% by 2030, refineries and industries in the petrochemical, glass, semiconductor, food and steel sectors are turning to electrolysis to decarbonize their processes. This market, with hundreds of gigawatts, is therefore potentially more important than that of mobility.
Finally, hydrogen allows the storage of intermittent renewable energies, which are difficult to inject into electricity networks when they produce too large quantities of electricity. We have developed with Gasunie, in the Netherlands, a 1.3 MW demonstrator for the storage of hydrogen produced with renewable electricity. Energy storage is a huge market, but in the longer term.
Still, to succeed, it is necessary to scale up with mature technology, to industrialize and automate manufacturing (gigafactories), to secure uses, and to have access to ‘cheap electricity. These are the conditions for electrolysis to become competitive in the fairly near future.
Today, ITM Power is one of the few companies ready to respond to these challenges. We have industrialized our technology. It remains to identify projects combining uses and cheap electricity.
