Norwegian electrolyser manufacturer Nel has booked a €45mn ($46mn) order from an undisclosed customer in the US for 200MW of alkaline electrolyser capacity—its largest order to date.

Production and delivery of the stacks is scheduled from February 2023 until mid-2024 from Nel’s main production facility at Heroya in Norway. Pending an engineering study, Nel could also have the opportunity to provide additional balance-of-plant equipment for the project.

“[The order] will have a substantial, positive impact on Nel’s financials, electrolyser production and production cost, technology development and scale-up plans,” says Nel CEO Hakon Volldal.

The electrolysers will be deployed at a “ground breaking” project backed by a 20-year offtake agreement with local industrial partners, Nel says. Power will be supplied under a 20-year power-purchase agreement.

500MW/yr – Capacity of Nel’s Heroya production plant

The developer has fully funded the project through private investment and has also received significant state and local government incentives, according to Nel.

Nel launched production at its Heroya plant in April, claiming it to be the world’s largest plant of its type. The facility has a production capacity of 500MW/yr, and this could rise to 2GW/yr with further investment. Nel has set a target to have 10GW/yr of capacity by 2025. By that time, the company expects its electrolysers to produce green hydrogen at $1.5/kg.

Last month, Nel’s former CEO, Jon Andre Lokke, called on developers to take more FIDs in order to speed up the sector’s development. At that time, Nel’s production plants were running at below capacity while it waited for more firm orders from project developers, Lokke told the FT Hydrogen Summit.

---

Author: Stuart Penson