Enapter, a green hydrogen production company based in Berlin, has secured a €25 million bearer bond with Patrimonium Middle Market Debt Fund.
The two-year bond will help fulfil production orders for Enapter’s plug-and-play electrolyser technology, which applies a catalyst to water to separate hydrogen energy from oxygen molecules.
According to the International Energy Agency, carbon emissions of 830 million tons could be prevented by substituting fossil-derived hydrogen for green methods, however building and running the electrolysers is costly and the IEA predicts around 3,000 TWh/year of renewable energy is needed to displace conventional supplies.
Various methods for water electrolysers to make renewable hydrogen have been proposed. Latvia’s Naco, for instance, focuses on R&D for developing cost-efficient catalysers, using novel materials and nano surface coatings to reduce the role of rare metal components such as platinum that pose a major problem for green hydrogen producers aiming to scale.
Enapter’s catalyst is a thin membrane sheet that essentially causes hydrogen to be filtered from oxygen molecules. The specific technique, known as an Anion Exchange Membrane, involves a semipermeable material composed of ionised conducting and electrically neutral units, which work in tandem to separate hydrogen and oxygen into separate electrodes.
The Italian startup has opted for a software-controlled modular technology with each electrolyser unit roughly the size of an air conditioning unit, allowing it to be scaled according to the desired energy output.
A “megawatt class” green hydrogen system is also available, formed of 420 of Enapter’s standard electrolyser cores with the same fundamental technology.
As a renewable energy source, Enapter’s technology will likely be in hot demand in Europe but also farther afield.
When Taiwan decided to accelerate its green transition, so that renewables produce a fifth of its energy supplies by 2025, Enapter was selected by Taiwanese renewable energy contractor Hephas Energy to deliver 20 of its electrolyser units. Most of the green hydrogen will go to electricity storage, creating a reserve that can be tapped whenever wind or solar farms aren’t producing enough energy.
It’s this robustness that’s appealing as green hydrogen can be used either as back-up for electricity distribution grids, or in industrial plants and vehicles as a direct replacement for other forms of hydrogen as well as traditional natural gas.
Already Enapter has customers stretched right across globe; there’s currently 264 end users in 50 countries. Each customer is also provided with an intelligent energy management interface that monitors green hydrogen output in real time.
Source : Tech.eu
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