Fusion Fuel Green Partners With CCC to Develop Green Hydrogen Demonstrator Plants in Middle East
Ireland-based electrolyzer company Fusion Fuel Green PLC will collaborate with Consolidated Contractors Group S.A.L. (Offshore) (CCC), to develop green hydrogen plants in the Middle East.
CCC and Fusion Fuel have agreed to cooperate on projects involving the production of green hydrogen for potential clients in the refining and petrochemical industries in order to reduce their carbon footprint.
The companies plan to develop demonstrator plants in several countries in the region, namely Oman, Kuwait, and Qatar.We are delighted to be partnering with the CCC to open this new market. The Middle East represents a big opportunity and a very promising region for us, given the high levels of solar exposure, strong appetite for green hydrogen projects, and strategic geographic position between Europe and Asia. We are excited to bring Fusion Fuel’s revolutionary technology to the Middle East.
—Joao Wahnon, Head of Business Development at Fusion Fuel
HEVO is Fusion-Fuel’s proprietary miniaturized PEM electrolyzer. It has been specifically designed to be small, lightweight and possible to be mass produced.
Its simplicity allows it to be versatile in its use. It can be combined with a high-efficiency solar cell and attached to a specifically designed concentrated photovoltaic solar panel.
CCC is a globally diversified company specializing in Engineering and Construction. Since its formation in 1952, CCC has become one of the leading international contractors with a worldwide turnover of more than US$4 billion and managing 60,000 personnel composed of more than 80 nationalities.
Commenting on the news, Richard Thompson, Editorial Director at MEED, part of GlobalData, said:
For nearly a century, the Gulf’s abundant supplies of accessible hydrocarbons has put it at the center of a gas-guzzling global economy. Territories that were largely desert in the middle of the 20th century are now thriving oil economies.
However, as the world strives to tackle climate change by decarbonizing energy sources and cutting the use of fossil fuels, the Middle East’s oil producers have identified a new opportunity that they hope will keep them at the heart of the global energy ecosystem throughout the 21st century: green hydrogen.
Still in its infancy as a commercially viable fuel, hydrogen produced sustainably by using renewable energy to power the electrolysis of water can provide vast quantities of clean fuel.
Further, it allows Middle East producers to store and transport the other energy source that they have in abundance: sunlight.
It is already possible to envisage vast solar farms across the deserts of the Middle East that are used to generate clean hydrogen fuel. It is this vision that has triggered a slew of recent green hydrogen investment deals in Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Oman and Saudi Arabia.
Many more will follow. However, the cost is one very large fly in the ointment. At present, it is much cheaper to produce blue hydrogen as a byproduct of fossil fuels than it is to use solar power and electrolysis. Until green hydrogen becomes price competitive, it cannot fulfil its promise.
In this regard, green hydrogen is currently in a similar position to that of solar power a decade ago. Advances in technology and economies of scale will bring down the costs of green hydrogen production over the next ten years, meaning that the eye-catching investments being announced today are simply the bow wave of a long-term surge in green hydrogen project spending in the region.
The announcement of this partnership came shortly after Fusion Fuel reached a collaboration agreement with the Elecnor Group for the development of green hydrogen projects in Spain using Fusion Fuel’s HEVO-SOLAR technology.
HEVO-SOLAR combines more than one hundred of Fusion-Fuel’s HEVO electrolyzers with a specially-designed high efficiency concentrated photovoltaic (CPV) solar module to make optimal use of both the electrical and thermal energy from the sun.
This collaboration will target the development of solar-to-hydrogen plants, leveraging Elecnor’s extensive commercial footprint and expertise in the engineering, construction, and development of renewable energy infrastructure projects, as well as its diversification into green hydrogen production.
Elecnor also has a significant presence in the design and construction of industrial process plants, many of which are potential consumers of green hydrogen produced by Fusion Fuel’s technology.
Source: greencarcongress
