Sunfire raises €215M in Series E; €100M EIB loan
06 March 2024
German electrolyzer manufacturer Sunfire announced a significant financial milestone with €215 million raised in a Series E equity financing round, further complemented by a term loan of up to €100 million provided by the European Investment Bank (EIB).
In addition, Sunfire has access to approximately €200 million from previously approved, undrawn grant funding to support its growth. Sunfire says that this makes it one of the best capitalized electrolyzer manufacturers in the industry.
Sunfire welcomes LGT Private Banking, GIC, Ahren Innovation Capital, and Carbon Equity as new investors in the Series E. The transaction is subject to customary regulatory approvals and is expected to close in Q2 2024.
In addition to the new investors, existing shareholders have increased their investment in Sunfire—among them Lightrock, Planet First Partners, Carbon Direct Capital, the Amazon Climate Pledge Fund, and Blue Earth Capital.
The €100 million from the European Investment Bank (EIB) alsoprovides increased capacity to boost development and industrialization of Sunfire’s solid oxide electrolyzers.
Sunfire produces industrial electrolyzers based on pressurized alkaline and solid oxide (SOEC) technologies. The company targets installing several gigawatts of electrolysis equipment by 2030 in large-scale green hydrogen projects, securing a leading position in the fast-growing global electrolyzer market.
It looks as though they have found out how to make much cheaper catalysts for electrolysis instead of precious metals, which should take a large chunk of cost out:
https://newenergyandfuel.com/http:/newenergyandfuel/com/2024/03/06/ai-has-found-cheap-efficient-hydrogen-producing-electrodes/
To give some perspective, a couple of years or so back it was estimated that when costsof electrolysers sunk below $300/KW then you could use them only a fraction of the time without greatly affecting costs of hydrogen produced, so the 20% or so of solar works fine.
Take that figure with a pinch of salt, as that was before the Ukranian war, covid etc, so prices now are often very different, but the principle that if you have relatively cheap electrolysers then you can cope with good costs with only running them intermittently remains.
Posted by: Davemart | 06 March 2024 at 03:43 AM
And for moving hydrogen about, transport etc liquifaction is handy.
It looks like we now have a good handle on how to reduce boil off and simplify it:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/03/240305165709.htm
' Rapid cooling of H2 under high pressure -- needed for liquefaction -- delays the ortho-to-para conversion during the cooling process, leaving considerable amounts of ortho-H2 in the liquid H2 produced.
The residual ortho-H2 molecules continue to isomerize to para-H2 during the storage, triggering partial vaporization of the liquid H2 and resulting in significant loss of H2 and energy.
The choice of proper catalysts prior to the liquefaction process can solve this problem because of accelerated ortho-to-para conversion. '
And:
' Rapid cooling of H2 under high pressure -- needed for liquefaction -- delays the ortho-to-para conversion during the cooling process, leaving considerable amounts of ortho-H2 in the liquid H2 produced.
The residual ortho-H2 molecules continue to isomerize to para-H2 during the storage, triggering partial vaporization of the liquid H2 and resulting in significant loss of H2 and energy.
The choice of proper catalysts prior to the liquefaction process can solve this problem because of accelerated ortho-to-para conversion. '
Posted by: Davemart | 06 March 2024 at 03:47 AM
Alkaline, molten carbonate and SOEC do not use precious metals,
they operate at higher temperatures and more efficiently.
Posted by: SJC | 06 March 2024 at 06:38 AM
Correction alkaline runs at 80c and uses Platinum on the cathode but is very efficient.
Posted by: SJC | 06 March 2024 at 06:46 AM
This company claims to have a very efficient electrolyzer.
https://hysata.com/#:~:text=Hysata%20has%20developed%20a%20completely,manufacturability%20for%20GW%2Dscale%20deployments.
Posted by: SJC | 06 March 2024 at 07:15 AM
Hi SJC
Currently most hydrogen from electrolysis is produced by alkaline electrolysers.
Assessing efficiencies of the different processes is pretty trickey, as they often confound what they are hitting at present with what they hope to hit, and in the case of for instance SOEC often use waste process heat from nearby industries to up the efficiency, which in a way is fair enough, but is still confusing if you want to make a like for like comparison.
Posted by: Davemart | 06 March 2024 at 12:41 PM