OSLO, Norway, Jan. 12, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — A subsidiary of Nel ASA (Nel),(OSE: NEL)has been awarded up to about USD 29 million in additional investment tax credits for its planned manufacturing expansion in Michigan as part of the Qualifying Advanced Energy Project Tax Credit (48C) program.
The 48C program is funded by the Inflation Reduction Act and managed by the US Department of Energy, the US Department of Treasury, and the Internal Revenue Service. A fully owned subsidiary of Nel ASA has now secured up to about USD 29 million in additional tax credits, equivalent to 30 % of the value of qualifying investments. Receipt is subject to conditions, such as wage and apprenticeship requirements.
Nel has a long history of investing in R&D and commercializing advancements co-supported by federal funding, creating confidence in Nel’s ability to manufacture and deliver products to the field.
“Nel appreciates this continued support from Department of Energy in scaling up manufacturing capability of our advanced electrolyser products,”
Accumulated, Nel has now secured close to USD 200 million in support in both tax credits and other grants from the state of Michigan and Department of Energy. Final investment decision for the Michigan facility is not yet taken, and the build out of the site depends on demand.
Caterpillar, in collaboration with Microsoft and Ballard Power Systems, has been recognized for its work in datacenter hydrogen fuel cell technology, winning the ‘Systems Development and Integration’ award at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DoE) 2024 Hydrogen Program Merit Review Awards.
The Ballard Power Systems-supported project has successfully demonstrated its megawatt-scale fuel cell platform at Microsoft’s Cheyenne, Wyoming, datacenter. The 1.5MW fuel cell and battery microgrid solution successfully demonstrated increased resiliency and lower carbon intensity, providing applicability beyond standby, over a simulated 48-hour outage.
The industry acknowledgement arrives as the datacenter sector faces mounting pressure to address its soaring energy needs with sustainable solutions. Hydrogen fuel cells can help meet reliability and environmental goals, especially as backup power.
Experts from Caterpillar’s Electric Power team led the project, providing system integration, power electronics, and microgrid controls, with support from Ballard – who delivered the 1.5MW fuel cell platform.
The DoE's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Linde, and McKinstry partnered in this project to demonstrate a first-of-a-kind megawatt-scale stationary fuel cell to generate zero-emission electric power while meeting the stand-by requirements of a modern datacenter.
Supported and partially funded by the DoE under the H2@Scale initiative, this three-year project demonstrates Ballard’s fuel cell system powered by liquid hydrogen. The goal is to prove that the fuel cell and battery microgrid solution is a safe and capable option for powering datacenters, with applicability beyond stand-by.
Project phases: from concept development to demonstration
The project’skick-off phaseestablished the requirements for safe and successful datacenter operations. The team also evaluated the existing regulations and fuel cell market opportunities.
The next phase focused onunderstanding the necessary components, control strategies and cybersecurity assessment. Simulations and testing cycles provided performance data, which the team used to define the fuel cell size, including balance of plant, hydrogen storage capacity, and related equipment.
Thebuilding and testing phasebegan with defining the bill of materials and initiating the parts procurement process. Various benches and testing procedures were established to evaluate the developed control procedures and sub-systems.
Test cycles ranged from basic software communication checks to demonstrating a 48-hour datacenter backup operation cycle, as well as quality performance, and durability and reliability tests over a 150-hour timeframe.
The final six months of the demonstration project involvedsystem installation, plant commissioning and debugging. This was followed by a two-month demonstration during which real-life data was collected. Despite the apparent short run-time, the demonstration is equivalent to up to 15 years of performance for a diesel genset at a datacenter.
"The demonstration project is a significant milestone in providing large datacenters with reliable and sustainable back-up power with hydrogen technology. As critical infrastructure operations shift from on-premises physical servers to multi-cloud environments, it is more important than ever to ensure datacenters are securely supported and connected across multiple platforms to deliver uninterruptible power supply."
Neal Fink Program Manager, Ballard
The project underscores the rising demand for sustainable solutions for data centers. The partnership's demonstration provides valuable insights into fuel cell system capacity and capability to support multi-megawatt datacenters, ensuring uninterrupted power supply to meet 99.99% uptime requirements - leveraging the most innovative digital infrastructure effectively, efficiently, and at scale.
Tokyo, Japan– Panasonic Corporation (Head office: Minato-ku, Tokyo; CEO: Masahiro Shinada; hereinafter referred to as "Panasonic") today announced that, in order to further enhance the competitiveness of its businesses contributing to carbon neutrality (decarbonization), it plans to launch a demonstration project in the spring of 2025 at one of the two office buildings of Panasonic Industry Europe GmbH, a company that sells electronic and industrial devices, etc. (Location: Ottobrunn, Germany), where electricity will be generated in-house using pure hydrogen fuel cell generators and photovoltaic generators, powering the office with 100% renewable energy. Construction began in October last year for the introduction of the demonstration facility that will link the three types of energy sources by utilizing existing photovoltaic generators and installing new pure hydrogen fuel cell generators and storage batteries.
Panasonic HX, a hydrogen-based energy solution, uses 5 kW or 10 kW pure hydrogen fuel cell generators that can be interconnected based on power demand and installation location. The combination of photovoltaic generators and storage batteries, along with the highly coordinated control of the three types of energy sources, allows for the adjustment of power supply and demand to respond to changes in power demand and renewable energy output due to weather conditions. This solution provides stable renewable energy while reducing excess power generation and waste.
The decentralized energy package, based on local power generation for local consumption, enhances resilience in the event of a disaster. The system's ability to optimize the number of hydrogen fuel cell generators in operation, based on power demand, extends the life of the hydrogen power generation system, and facilitates maintenance in the operational environment, allowing for uninterrupted service during maintenance.
After previously establishing demonstration facilities to power its fuel cell factory in Kusatsu, Shiga Prefecture, Japan, and its microwave oven assembly factory in Cardiff, Wales, UK, with renewable energy, Panasonic will now conduct its first demonstration of power supply and demand management for an office building using hydrogen-based renewable energy. Additionally, the demonstration project in Germany will use new 10 kW pure hydrogen fuel cell generators, replacing the conventional 5 kW type. Panasonic will develop solutions that are best suited to various use cases and regional characteristics, while building relationships with local partner companies and corporate customers involved in the hydrogen business.
With a mission to contribute to the wellbeing of people, society and the planet, Panasonic adopts a medium- to long-term perspective on its business, aiming to create a society that achieves both wellbeing and sustainability. By demonstrating the hydrogen-based energy solution for an office building in Germany, the company aims to create a new business that contributes to German society and addresses climate change. It will also propose a new option for adopting renewable energy through full-scale hydrogen use, helping achieve a decarbonized society.
About Panasonic Corporation
Panasonic Corporation offers products and services for a variety of living environments, ranging from homes to stores to offices and cities. There are five businesses at the core of Panasonic Corporation: Living Appliances and Solutions Company, Heating & Ventilation A/C Company, Cold Chain Solutions Company, Electric Works Company and China and Northeast Asia Company. The operating company reported consolidated net sales of 3,494.4 billion yen for the year ended March 31, 2024. Panasonic Corporation is committed to fulfilling the mission of Life Tech & Ideas: For the wellbeing of people, society and the planet, and embraces the vision of becoming the best partner of your life with human-centric technology and innovation. Learn more about Panasonic: https://www.panasonic.com/global/about/
Topsoe de-risks SOEC electrolyzers for green hydrogen through insurance partnership with New Energy Risk
New Energy Risk (NER) has been selected as the preferred insurance partner for Topsoe’s SOEC hydrogen electrolyzer products.
Partnering with NER represents an important milestone for the deployment of Topsoe’s solid oxide electrolyzer cells (SOEC) as it de-risks their development and customers’ green hydrogen and Power-to-X projects.
Providing insurance coverage for electrolysis technologies such as Topsoe’s SOEC’s can further improve rollout timelines of green hydrogen projects to deliver on growing global demand.
Topsoe, a global leader in carbon emission reduction technologies, has chosen NER, a provider of technology performance insurance, as the preferred insurance partner for Topsoe’s SOEC hydrogen electrolyzer products.
The partnership follows NER’s completion of detailed technical due diligence of Topsoe’s SOEC electrolyzer technology and enables Topsoe’s customers to deploy NER’s technology performance insurance on projects using SOEC technology– enhancing bankability and enabling a lower cost of capital. The completion of technical due diligence streamlines the offering of performance insurance to eligible projects, who can benefit from improved timelines and increased certainty of financing success.
Sundus Cordelia Ramli,CCO Power-to-X at Topsoe, said:
Our partnership with NER is an important milestone to accelerate the delivery of our customers’ green hydrogen projects and is a testament to the confidence in our technology.
“As the insurance provides performance coverage for commissioning, ramp-up and operations it’s a strong de-risking tool supporting customers and investors with increased bankability for projects that involve our SOEC electrolyzers.”
Tom Dickson,CEO of New Energy Risk, added:
We see the promise in the hydrogen market and appreciate that Topsoe has put their trust and confidence in NER’s capabilities to deliver value and support customer adoption and financing of their electrolyzer technology.
The insurance product from NER is a performance coverage for commissioning, ramp-up and operations. This includes cover for technical issues leading to temporary or permanent performance drop where coverage is provided to support cash flow and/or project revenue.
Providing insurance coverage for electrolysis technologies such as Topsoe’s SOEC accelerates the delivery of green hydrogen. Momentum for green hydrogen projects is growing and production levels can potentially increase substantially by 2030 if all announced projects are realized. According to the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) Global Hydrogen Review 2023[1], the annual production of hydrogen may reach 38 million tonnes per year in 2030, with almost 75 percent coming from electrolyzers running on renewable energy.
SOEC factory in Herning Topsoe has made significant progress in the development of its SOEC technology having completed the construction of its first SOEC factory in Herning, Denmark. The factory has started production with a view to begin commercial supply in Q1 2025.
To improve overall cost curve for SOEC deployment, Topsoe is alsocollaborating with ABB and Fluor, as the parties in June 2024 entered into an alliance to use learnings taken from construction of the Herning factory to build its next factory more efficiently and through a standardized concept.
