The agreement between the Germany-based specialist for high-efficient water electrolysis, thyssenkrupp nucera, and the Swedish industrial start-up H2 Green Steel, secures capacity of more than 700MW for H2 Green Steel’s electrolysis plant in Boden – making it one of the world’s largest electrolysis plants announced to date.
According to a news release, the agreement with thyssenkrupp nucera will cover alkaline water electrolysis technology (AWE) and large-scale electrolysis plant engineering. thyssenkrupp nucera has a proven track record with more than 600 installed projects and over 10 GW capacity in the chlor-alkali technology, which is the DNA for ‘scalum’, its large-scale 20 MW standard AWE module.
“This electrolyzer agreement indicates a change in market dynamics and is also a proof of our new business model for reservation of production capacity. For customers where time-to-market is critical, ensuring access to production capacity of leading electrolyzer technology becomes essential. With this bold investment, H2 Green Steel has shown a strong commitment to their timeline to decarbonize the steel industry and we look forward to working with them,” says Dr. Werner Ponikwar, CEO of thyssenkrupp nucera AG & Co. KGaA.
Through this collaboration, thyssenkrupp nucera will deliver capacity of more than 700MW to the electrolysis plant, likely making the H2 Green Steel plant one of the world’s largest AWE installation by the time its commissioned.
The giga-scale electrolysis plant, the first globally, is based on a concept where H2 Green Steel uniquely will use several complementing technologies for green hydrogen production, enabling balancing of the system for cost- optimization and operational flow as each technology’s core benefits can be harvested. To build it, H2 Green steel is teaming up with different world-leading partners and expertise in design, construction, equipment, operations and financing.
“The electrolysis plant in Boden will be many times bigger than most electrolyzer installations that exist today. Combining our own strong technical expertise with that of an experienced electrolysis supplier like thyssenkrupp nucera gives us a solid edge in the growing green hydrogen economy, which we will leverage to transform hard to abate industries. We start with steel in Boden, Sweden, but it’s only the beginning,” says Maria Persson Gulda, Chief Technology Officer H2 Green Steel.
Hydrogen produced in the electrolysis plant in Boden will be consumed on-site in a direct reduction process, reducing iron ore to sponge iron, enabling production of green steel. The electrolyzer units will be crucial to maximize the operational and economic benefits of the hydrogen in the steel mill, which also forms the foundation for new patented intellectual property assets.
The work leading up to the signing of the contract was enabled through support from Sweden’s Industrial Leap programme, led by the Swedish Energy Agency.
