Electrolysers

Cummins to start construction of PEM electrolyser gigafactory in central Spain

Plant will be completed by end of year with 500MW annual capacity, but will be scaleable to more than 1GW

Four Cummins electrolyser modules at Air Liquide's 20MW green-hydrogen facility in Bécancour, Canada.
Four Cummins electrolyser modules at Air Liquide's 20MW green-hydrogen facility in Bécancour, Canada.Photo: Cummins

US manufacturer Cummins “will soon begin building” its new gigawatt-scale PEM electrolyser factory in central Spain, with construction due to be completed by the end of next year.

The news about the new plant comes days after the company said it would retool an existing facility in Minnesota to build an initial 500MW of PEM electrolysers a year and a month after it revealed it would expand its existing PEM electrolyser factory in Belgium to 1GW.

The new facility in Guadalajara, Castilla-La Mancha, will open with 500MW of annual manufacturing capacity, but is scaleable to more than 1GW — the same as the Minnesota plant.

When the plan was announced in May last year, Cummins said the plant would cost €50m.

Cummins is also building a 1GW PEM electrolyser factory in southern China as part of a joint venture called Cummins Enze with Chinese state-owned oil giant Sinopec.

“By increasing our ability to meet demand for hydrogen generation technology, this facility will help accelerate the global clean energy transition and the role of hydrogen as a viable alternative energy source in Europe,” said Alexey Ustinov, Cummins’ vice-president of electrolysers.

“Cummins is committed to helping the EU produce more hydrogen domestically, reducing dependence on fossil fuels and securing a sustainable future.”

The European Commission wants ten million tonnes of green hydrogen to be produced annually inside the EU by the end of this decade, with a further ten million tonnes imported.

In May, the Commission announced plans to roll out Carbon Contracts for Difference subsidies for green hydrogen using cash from its Innovation Fund “to support a full switch of the existing hydrogen production in industrial processes from natural gas to renewables and the transition to hydrogen-based production processes in new industrial sectors such as steel-making”.

Correction: This article was amended on 17 October to remove references to Iberdrola and to change the timing of the completion of the factory. The original version of this article stated that the Spanish utility was partnering with Cummins on the factory, which was based on information given to Hydrogen Insight by a public-relations firm working on behalf of Cummins. Hydrogen Insight has since been informed by that public-relations company that this was a mistake, and that Iberdrola is not involved in the factory construction. Iberdrola is, however, still working with Cummins on developing green hydrogen projects.
This article also originally stated that the factory was due to be completed by the end of this year. The public-relations company has also told Hydrogen Insight that this was a mistake too, that it will in fact be completed by the end of next year.
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IberdrolaCumminsPEM electrolysersSpainEurope
Published 13 October 2022, 18:50Updated 17 October 2022, 09:57