Neste starts up high-temperature electrolyser at Rotterdam refinery
The pioneering MultiPLHY project, with consortium partners Neste, Sunfire, CEA, and Engie, demonstrating renewable hydrogen production has reached a milestone. The world’s largest multi-megawatt high-temperature electrolyser (HTE) in an industrial environment has started up at materials firm 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 program will validate the technology’s performance characteristics.
The high-temperature electrolyser is provided by the German electrolyser manufacturer Sunfire and the hydrogen processing unit (HPU) by SMS group. Neste is responsible for the refinery integration and together with Sunfire oversees the operation of the unit. The research and technology organisation CEA coordinates the project, and Engie is in charge of techno-economic assessment.
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 utilization of heat, the high-temperature electrolyzer requires significantly less electricity to produce renewable hydrogen compared to other solutions on the market.
“Thanks to their unrivaled efficiency, our high-temperature SOEC electrolyzers 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,” underlines Nils Aldag, CEO of Sunfire.
“High-temperature electrolysis has the potential to make renewable hydrogen more affordable while increasing the energy efficiency of various industrial processes globally. The construction and commissioning achieved by Sunfire and Neste is a tremendous achievement and a big step in making green hydrogen competitive,” says Pierre Olivier, Head of Hydrogen Lab from Engie.
