Solve the problem of transporting hydrogen: H2Site @ Viva Technology

From June 15 to 18, H2site will be present on the ENGIE stand at Viva Technology.

Andres Galnares, CEO of H2site, presents the company and what he expects from his participation in Viva Technology.

Hello Andres, can you present H2site in a few words? 

At H2site, we offer solutions to avoid transporting hydrogen.
It is often said that when the cost of hydrogen production drops below €2/kg, hydrogen will become the panacea. Actually, we already know how to generate gray (non-renewable) hydrogen, at a price of less than €2/kg. However, the costs of compression, storage, transport and distribution of hydrogen are huge and the selling price of hydrogen therefore exceeds 10-20 €/kg.
We believe that a hydrogen economy cannot develop until we know how to control its transport. This is the reason why, instead of transporting hydrogen, we have chosen to transport molecules that contain hydrogen, e.g. ammonia, methanol, ethanol, dimethyl ether, formic acid, biogas, syngas…
These molecules are placed in a membrane reactor which extracts all the hydrogen to make it available to the end user with “fuel cell” purity.

What are you going to present at Vivatech? 

At Vivatech, we will focus on our core technology, our membranes. We will showcase a project that we just won to supply the entire Birmingham bus fleet with hydrogen produced from ammonia, at a cost of £5/kg, a fairly competitive cost compared to conventional fuels.

How is it innovative? 

Quite simply, because we are the first to do this!
This type of membrane reactor for transforming ammonia into hydrogen is unique.

Have you got customers all over Europe? 

Yes, we are based in Bilbao, Spain, but 80% of our turnover is international. Our playground is rather in Western Europe for the moment with customers in Germany, France and Spain… We are targeting Northern Europe where we encounter great interest, particularly on subjects around ammonia and methanol.

What do you expect from Viva Technology? 

We hope this show will give us the opportunity to explore new partnerships and showcase our technology to potential customers.

For you, what will the future be?

I could say, for us the future will be industrial, technological and European.
We are very proud that our technology is European, developed in Europe for 15 years and patented here. These patents are now protected, enhanced and industrialized by our commercial and industrial apparatus.
The units we are building are unique in the world, meet a real need in the hydrogen economy and are able to promote the development of a European industry.
When I arrived in the company, there were 3 of us, this year we are hiring 30 people, and we are planning around fifty recruitments in 2023.
For me, the industrial capital of countries is an asset to be protected. Participating, at my level, in the growth of European industry through technology and innovation is essential.