Hydrogen Optimized, a subsidiary of Key DH Technologies Inc., has entered into a confidential Letter of Intent (LOI) with a large industrial company to provide more than 40 MW of RuggedCell water electrolyzer capacity for hydrogen production.

The LOI provides for high current unipolar RuggedCell systems to be deployed at one or more sites by the company, which plans to roll out hundreds of megawatts of electrolyzer capacity over time. It also specifies that the installed systems could be scaled up as demand for hydrogen grows.

A key factor underlying the agreement is our system’s unique capability to double or more in capacity without requiring the installation of costly additional electrical and other equipment.

—Andrew T. B. Stuart, President and CEO of Hydrogen Optimized

RuggedCell water electrolysis technology was designed from the start to offer important capabilities which were missing in the market. These include:

• The use of low-cost materials that, unlike many other electrolyzers in the market today, are free of iridium and other highly expensive platinum group metals;

• Ease of mass manufacturing;

• High-current architecture that uniquely enables individual hydrogen production modules in the hundreds of megawatts each; and

• The proven capability of RuggedCell electrolyzers to ramp from zero to 50,000 amperes in under 10 seconds and then very quickly reduce the current to any level, even down to zero amperes. This capability supports the system’s integration with intermittent renewable energy sources such as wind or solar, and with use on grids or micro-grids with widely varying power availability.

The main driver behind the mass deployment of water electrolysis is the need to reduce the carbon intensity of hard-to-abate industries such as ammonia, cement, methanol, steel, heavy-duty transportation and other fossil-fuel-intensive applications. Hydrogen produced with low to zero carbon dioxide emissions is widely recognized as key to achieving “net zero” emissions by 2050. To that end, recently the World Hydrogen Council called for hydrogen to contribute over 20% toward global carbon abatement by 2050.

Hydrogen Optimized seeks to be the first water electrolysis company to supply an aggregate of 10 GW of hydrogen production equipment.