Electrolyser manufacturer Nel has opened the world’s largest alkaline electrolyser production plant at Heroya in Norway.

Nel says the facility has a production capacity of 500MW/yr and that this could rise to 2GW/yr with further investment—20pc of the 10GW/yr capacity the firm hopes to reach by 2025.

The company says its electrolysers are still on track to produce green hydrogen at $1.5/kg by that date, although capex must be reduced to a quarter of today’s level to achieve this.

“Half of the savings we need to make will come from scale-up and increased efficiency in production. The rest will come from the economy of scale and from effective industrial partnerships,” says Nel CEO Jon Andre Lokke.

Nel has completed designs for an 800MW/yr plant including plans for reassembled pipes, stacks and separators to bring down costs.

“Our large-scale concepts allow us to optimise the overall capex and realise synergies to reduce cost,” says Lokke.

500MW/yr – Heroya’s manufacturing capacity

The firm is developing three new types of electrolyser: a pressurised single-cell stack alkaline electrolyser, larger capacity stacks of its current alkaline electrolysers and a larger single-cell stack proton-exchange-membrane (PEM) electrolyser. It is looking for a site for a large-scale technology production facility in the US to manufacture both PEM and alkaline electrolysers.

“At Heroya, we are producing the best alkaline electrolysers in the world. The next step would be to industrialise our PEM technology in the US in a similar way,” says Lokke.

Nel entered into framework agreements in 2021 with engineering company Wood and engineering services firm Aibel to expand its project delivery offering.

Nel’s purchase order backlog stood at NOK1.2bn ($140mn) as of last month, up by 25pc from 2020.

“Nel’s new factory at Heroya is a step in the right direction towards a future without emissions,” says Terje Lien Aasland, Norway’s minister of energy and petroleum.

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Author: Tom Young