H2SITE, a deep-tech pioneer in on-site hydrogen (H2) production, announced today that it has raised 12,5 M€ in a Series A funding round led by Breakthrough Energy Ventures (BEV), with participation from Equinor Ventures, ENGIE New Ventures, TECNALIA and institutional investors from the Basque Country (Capital Riesgo País Vasco (EZTEN FCR) and Seed Capital Bizkaia (SCB)).
“H2Site has developed innovative technologies enabling the use of existing natural gas infrastructure to bring clean hydrogen to end users. These solutions have a potential for direct application within Equinor’s future hydrogen projects and I look forward to seeing the technology further developed and deployed”
The funding will accelerate the scale up of H2SITE’s integrated membrane reactor and membrane separation technologies to obtain fuel cell purity hydrogen from ammonia or methanol cracking, or enable hydrogen transportation in existing natural gas infrastructure. H2SITE will also increase its membrane manufacturing capabilities, operating a world unique membrane manufacturing plant in the North of Spain.
“While much focus is given to hydrogen generation cost reduction, less attention is given to reduction of hydrogen transport cost. Transporting hydrogen is a complex task, it being a small molecule that is difficult to contain. The current compression, storage, decompression, and transport solutions are both economically and environmentally inefficient”, says Andrés Galnares, H2SITE’s CEO.
TECNALIA, Spain’s largest private research center, and the Technical University of Eindhoven realized that 13 years ago and developed the advanced membrane reactors. They combine special membranes with one-process-step reactors to produce onsite, low-cost renewable hydrogen. ENGIE’s R&D entity CRIGEN contributed to the development of the commercial version of the reactor. Intellectual Property was transferred into the newly created H2SITE to commercialize the technology.
H2SITE has since developed these onsite hydrogen generation units. Double skin inorganic membranes with long lifespan, integrated into process units can both crack hydrogen carriers and separate the hydrogen from blends in natural gas infrastructure or purify it in dedicated hydrogen infrastructure.
“Hydrogen is a promising pathway to decarbonize many parts of the economy but transporting it remains one of the biggest challenges. H2SITE has developed a solution that solves the transportation issue and will change the game for how quickly hydrogen can be deployed in already established pipelines which in turn could save billions of dollars in infrastructure costs,” said Carmichael Roberts of Breakthrough Energy Ventures.
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H2SITE has shown strong commercial traction in 2022 and has recently been awarded projects to transform ammonia into H2 for the bus fleet in Birmingham, England, biogas into H2 for hydrogen refueling stations in Spain and in France, as well as several separation projects from H2 / natural gas blends in the gas transport infrastructure that are under construction.
“As an early investor from the very beginning of H2SITE journey, ENGIE New Ventures showed its commitment to the development of a promising and versatile technology to scale up sustainable and efficient solutions for industry and mobility needs; this support materialized also through ENGIE developing some commercial projects in H2 refueling stations using H2SITE technology,” said Johann Boukhors, Managing Director of ENGIE New Ventures.