Topsoe opens 500MW electrolyser facility in Denmark

Topsoe has inaugurated its first Solid Oxide Electrolyser Cell (SOEC) stack manufacturing facility in Denmark.

At 23,000 square meters and including 200 km of cables and over 40 km of pipes, the Herning facility is said to be Europe’s largest.

And although it’s initially designed to manufacture 500MW of electrolysers per year, it will be capable of servicing up to 10GW of installed capacity at customer sites once fully developed.

The electrolyser stacks will be used to produce green hydrogen, which can be converted into ammonia and methanol and used to decarbonise hard-to-abate sectors.

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Roeland Baan, Chief Executive Officer at Topsoe, suggests this facility will be game changer for the sector. “With this facility, we are moving SOEC technology and Power-to-X from ambition to reality – at a scale and speed that’s urgently needed.”

Topsoe’s SOEC electrolysis technology is a modular design that operates at significantly higher temperatures compared to other electrolyser technologies. According to Kim Saaby Hedegaard, Executive Vice President of Power-to-X at Topsoe, classical technologies function between ambient and 70 degrees Celsius, whereas Topsoe’s technology can operate at around 800 degrees Celsius.

This allows for 20% more hydrogen to be produced per renewable power input, claims Topsoe, compared with PEM and alkaline systems.

Furthermore, the efficiency gain can increase to 30% when coupled with steam integration, steam that can come from waste heat generated in existing processes.

At circa €300 million, the project is Topsoe’s largest investment to date and is supported by a €94 million ($108 million) grant from the EU Innovation Fund.

“This is important for our business case, the roll out of our technology and important for the investment Topsoe has made into the energy transition,” added Hedegaard in the press briefing.

Topsoe first announced plans for the Herning facility in May 2022 to expand SOEC manufacturing capacity. The company has already signed offtake agreements with First Ammonia for their green ammonia project in Texas, US, and with Forestal for their e-methanol project in Spain.

Ammonia, whether low-carbon ammonia or as an e-fuel, is expected to play a critical role in Europe’s decarbonisation pathway. It can be transported using existing infrastructure; and has multiple end-uses, as a fuel or hydrogen carrier, or to help decarbonise industrial processes like steel and cement production.

With partners Skovgaard Energy and Vestas, Topsoe inaugurated a green ammonia plant in Ramme, Denmark, in August last year. This plant has an output of 5,000 tonnes of green ammonia annually and will prevent 8,200 tonnes of CO2 from being emitted into the atmosphere every year.

It’s projects like these that signal the growth of a solid pipeline, and what Hedegaard refers to as a “consolidation on companies and on the marketplace”.

He acknowledges the slowdown story and the end of the hype cycle that caused interests in the market to cool. He also recognizes the change in Administration in the US has caused them to invest more cautiously.

However, Hedegaard stresses that mature markets such as the US and Canada will continue to play a role in their growth, especially with demand for applications such as renewable natural gas.