H2Pro to make green hydrogen for $1 per kg

CAESAREA, March 9, 2021 – Israel’s H2Pro, a startup backed by Bill Gates, says it is working on a technology to produce green hydrogen for USD 1 per kilogram by the second half of this decade.

The company said on Tuesday that it had secured USD 22 million in financing from the likes of the Microsoft founder and a Hong Kong billionaire, Li Ka-shing, as well as Sumitomo Corp. and Hyundai Motor Company, Bloomberg reports.

Green hydrogen is made by an electrolyser running on power sourced from renewables such as wind and solar. Most hydrogen is currently produced from natural gas using steam reformation – termed grey hydrogen. In between the two is blue hydrogen, which is grey hydrogen made with carbon capture technology.

While green hydrogen is seen as a potential game-changer for energy as it is almost fully decarbonised, costs are holding back its large-scale deployment. Recent estimates put the cost of grey hydrogen at around USD 1 per kilogram, blue hydrogen at USD 2 per kilogram and green hydrogen at USD 4 per kilogram.

H2Pro says it has developed a water-splitting technology it calls E-TAC that will bring the cost to USD 1, and the influx of finance will allow the company to begin manufacturing.

The technology involves using thermal energy instead of electricity to complete the final step in electrolysis that produces hydrogen and oxygen as separate gases. If its deployment is viable, the technology could be transformative for the growing global hydrogen sector.

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