Hydrogen transition taking shape
29/03/2018The Hague made no mention of it in October's coalition agreement, but in Arnhem, hydrogen has been a household word for years. The energy capital - with the headquarters of grid operator Tennet and test company Kema, but also formerly those of Nuon and Essent - had the first public hydrogen pumping station in the Netherlands and sees much more future in hydrogen.
Local businesses also believe in the gas, already praised to the skies by Jules Verne and now embraced by Shell, Daimler and Toyota as well as Germany, Japan and California. The Kleefse Waard business park is home to five pioneering hydrogen companies, which have worked together before, but on 23 April they will sit down for the first time for real talks. An alderman and a provincial executive will join them.
'The hydrogen economy, that's going to be it,' says Arnoud van de Bree, director of Nedstack, one of the five. 'Because we are all doing something with hydrogen, we would do well to join forces in the region, with support from the municipality and the province.'
Flywheel
What that bundling should entail later is still unclear. One participant does not even appear to be aware of the meeting. But Van de Bree is convinced of the usefulness of coordinated action and hopes for a 'flywheel effect', which in his view could benefit the entire region.
He prefers to see government support in the form of 'a pot' for another two or three filling stations in the region and around 10 new hydrogen buses. Between Arnhem and Apeldoorn, regional carrier Keolis currently commutes with one hydrogen bus, designed by HyMove, one of the other hydrogen companies on the Kleefse Waard. What makes a hydrogen bus different are the fuel cells, in which hydrogen is converted into electricity (and water vapour), which then drives an electric motor. Nedstack is the supplier of the high-tech in Keolis' regional bus.
'Developments are already going much faster. Between now and five years, things are really going to happen.'
- Marinus van Driel of HyGear
AkzoNobel
Nedstack originated in the late 1990s in the laboratories of AkzoNobel, then the main resident of the Kleefse Waard. The group sold its non-core business in 1999 to a few employees, who further developed the technology. Today, Nedstack is one of a handful of suppliers in the world of fuel cells for vehicles and stationary applications.
The other three companies in the hydrogen cluster along the Rhine in Arnhem are compressor manufacturer HyET Hydrogen, installation company MTSA Technopower, which emerged from Shell Research, and HyGear.
The latter company is an outlier due to its listing, since last year, on the infrequent SME exchange NPEX. The company is a supplier of industrial gases, including hydrogen, but also offers complete installations in shipping containers that allow customers to produce hydrogen on site, usually from natural gas.
Capital requirement by leasing
Those modules cost all-in €750,000 and are often made available to customers via a lease. The large capital requirement through that leasing and the company's planned growth (now just under €10m annual turnover and 64 employees) explain the IPO and the placement of an additional €5m bond today. HyGear was founded 15 years ago with the idea that hydrogen would soon play a "critical" role in the energy economy, says director-major shareholder Marinus van Driel. But that predicted spring did not materialise at the time and the company shifted its focus to industrial sales.
Whether that spring will come now? 'In my gut, I say we need another three decades before we have really switched over,' says Van Driel. 'But developments are already moving much faster. Between now and five years, things are really going to happen.'
Article by Frank Gersdorf, Het Financieele Dagblad
