German government supports Sunfire with 60 million euros

Until now, the production of hydrogen has only been possible on a small scale and is very energy-intensive. Dresden-based start-up Sunfire wants to change this and is receiving funding from the German government.

The German government has invested 60 million euros in the hydrogen technology of Sunfire and its partners from industry and research. 33 million euros of this will go towards preparing the series production of the high-temperature electrolysers (SOEC). The other 27 million euros are earmarked for the mass production of pressurized alkaline electrolysers, another hydrogen production process.

The high-temperature electrolysers use waste heat from industrial processes to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. According to the company, the technology developed by Sunfire requires 30 percent less electricity to produce one kilogram of hydrogen. "Among other things, we will make the individual components more durable and simplify the design of the systems," announces Sunfire's Head of Technology Christian von Olshausen. "With our optimized high-temperature electrolysers, the industry will be able to produce green hydrogen even more efficiently - and therefore more cost-effectively - in the future. To also reduce the purchase price, we are also developing process chains for industrial series production." Sunfire is working with 15 partners on production. These include companies such as Xenon Automatisierungstechnik and research institutes such as the European Institute of Energy Research.

The pressurized alkaline electrolysers have been in production for some time, but have not yet been mass-produced. This is now set to change with funding from the German government. "We are setting up production processes and finalizing the new design of our pressurized alkaline electrolysers," says von Olshausen. "Compared to the previous models, we will further improve them in terms of energy consumption and durability."

The funding from the German government is part of the "Hydrogen Republic of Germany" project, which aims to promote the production of green hydrogen. By 2030, the capacity of electrolysers in the European Union is to increase from 0.2 to 40 gigawatts.