Solid-oxide fuel cell company Elcogen announced that Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering Co., Ltd. (KSOE), a member of HD Hyundai Group, has signed a strategic investment in Elcogen of €45m with closing subject to, among other things, Elcogen obtaining the approval of its shareholders to the issue of the new shares to KSOE.

HD Hyundai’s investment follows an extensive period of testing the full range of technology available in the market, following which an R&D collaboration agreement was signed with Elcogen in January 2023, which was focused on further testing of Elcogen’s technology and development of systems.

Following this investment, HD Hyundai and Elcogen intend to strengthen further their collaboration with a focus on marine propulsion systems and stationary power generation based on Elcogen’s proprietary solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) and green hydrogen production based Elcogen’s solid oxide electrolyzer cell (SOEC) technology.

This investment will be used to expand Elcogen’s manufacturing capacity as it continues to build the company’s new factory facility in Tallinn, Estonia, with a manufacturing capacity of up to 360MW to meet increasing demand for its products.

As part of HD Hyundai’s “Ocean Transformation” vision which it announced in January of this year, Kisun Chung, CEO of HD Hyundai and HD KSOE, described four key visions, one of which was Ocean Mobility targeting next-generation digital ships that are eco-friendly as an answer to ocean sustainability. This part of HD Hyundai’s vision is led by KSOE. Shortly after that announcement, KSOE concluded its MOU with Elcogen which sets out how the companies will work together to design and prototype test large-capacity SOFC systems for use in ships and power generation.

KSOE and Elcogen also intend to work together to manufacture systems in South Korea, and further strengthen the companies collaboration in SOFC and SOEC technology.

HD Hyundai chose Elcogen’s SOFC and SOEC technology because:

• of its flexibility to produce electrical energy from a variety of fuels such as hydrogen, natural gas, ammonia, methanol, and biofuel; and

• its suitability for ship engines and cogeneration as it is highly energy efficient and can use waste heat generated from high-temperature operation (600~1000˚C.

As part of HD Hyundai’s progress towards marine propulsion, its SOFC systems will initially target providing auxiliary power on-board vessels before scaling up to provide propulsion.