The pioneering MultiPLHY project demonstrating renewable hydrogen production has reached a key milestone.
The consortium partners have successfully started up the world's largest multi-megawatt high-temperature electrolyser (HTE) in an industrial environment at Neste’s renewable products refinery in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.
The pilot project demonstrates the viability of renewable hydrogen in reducing the use of fossil hydrogen in the refining industry.
Replacing hydrogen produced from fossil raw materials with renewable hydrogen is one of the key means to lower greenhouse gas emissions in refining.
As a next step in the demonstration project, a test programme will validate the technology's performance characteristics.
"The MultiPLHY project has given Neste valuable insights and experience in integrating industrial-scale renewable hydrogen production into our refinery.
“We remain committed to exploring different pathways to replace fossil-based hydrogen in our refining processes to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in our own operations. This demonstration project also shows the importance of cooperation across the whole value chain," said Jukka Kanerva, senior vice-president, renewable refining at Neste.
The electrolyser integrated into Neste's refinery processes is based on SOEC (Solid Oxide Electrolysis Cell) technology by Sunfire.
The high-temperature electrolyzer (2.6 MW) consists of twelve electrolysis modules, operating at high temperatures of 850°C to produce more than 60 kg of renewable hydrogen per hour.
Due to the utilisation of heat, the high-temperature electrolyzer requires significantly less electricity to produce renewable hydrogen compared to other solutions on the market.
“Thanks to their unrivalled efficiency, our high-temperature SOEC electrolysers will be the preferred solution in many applications where waste heat is available.
“The MultiPLHY project demonstrates that the innovative technology can be integrated into industrial environments at a large scale. We are proud of this big milestone,” underlined Nils Aldag, CEO of Sunfire.
Renewable hydrogen production started at Neste’s Rotterdam refinery
