With the hydrogen hubs announced in the USA on October 13 2023 and the global hydrogen market on the rise, seasoned industry leaders who anticipate market shifts are strategically positioning themselves to seize emerging opportunities. Originating from the shores of Norway, Hydrogen Purus is poised to expand its product offerings beyond its initial line of hydrogen tanks, gearing up to serve multiple product lines in clean technologies.
Hydrogen Purus has been opening several manufacturing facilities across continents in anticipation of demand in North America, Europe, and China. In North America, the Westminster, MD, and Kelowna, BC, Canada, facilities were opened in January and April 2023, respectively. The former is focused on hydrogen cylinder engineering manufacturing for North American mobility and aerospace customers. It occupies a 60,000 square foot building with a capacity of up to 10,000 cylinders and is staffed by 150 employees. The Kelowna facility is currently preparing for the production of over 1,000 LEGO battery packs annually in partnership with Panasonic.
European market production is centered in Germany, with facilities in Kassel opened in September and Weeze, scheduled to open in January 2024. The Kassel facility will mainly be a cylinder production hub for mobility and infrastructure applications, supply cylinders to Weeze for hydrogen refueling station solutions and transport cylinder systems, currently for bus and rail. In Westminster the focus is on both cylinder production for bus, aerospace and HDV and system assembly for mobility purposes (H2 systems for HDV). Additionally, under construction and set to open shortly in China is the Shijiazhuang facility for joint venture manufacturing and systems assembly.
All of these manufacturing and assembly facilities are coming online in a short period, requiring significant investment and an expectation of orders rolling in. On the battery side, Hino Trucks’ contract with Hexagon is estimated at $2 billion, and a contract with a major North American OEM for utility trucks is worth $150 million. То increase vehicle integration capacity and enable delivery on the recently won vehicle integration contracts, Hexagon Purus will open a 200,000 square feet vehicle integration facility in Dallas, Texas employing up to 250 skilled workers.
Hydrogen customers for storage systems are undisclosed but include Lhyfe, Air Liquide, Linde, and many other players. In the European mobility sector, orders include $65 million for an onboard hydrogen fuel storage systems for bus for two OEMs. Nearly a $200 million multi-year hydrogen contract has also been announced to deliver cylinders for Nikola’s Tre heavy-duty truck.
“The storage cylinders for Nikola´s hydrogen trucks are initially manufactured in our new Kassel facility but will be manufactured in the US at a later stage. There are more heavy-duty hydrogen truck programs coming behind Nikola in North America next few years, so we expect to expand our manufacturing capacity in the US as the market develops. The IRA has really accelerated hydrogen investments in the US, so it´s developing rapidly”, explains Morten Holum, CEO of Hexagon Purus.
Hexagon’s primary cylinder product is the Type-4 tanks. Their design consists of a polymer lining cylinder that contains hydrogen and prevents it from leaking through its walls even under high pressure. However, the polymer lining lacks the strength to hold the pressure. This role is transferred to carbon fibers and epoxy glue, which are wound by special machines to a thickness of a couple of inches. The number, width, and position of the carbon filaments play a critical role in ensuring the performance and durability of the cylinder. Hexagon Purus’s winding technology is a key enabler at their new facility in Kassel, Germany, where high-performance Type-4 hydrogen cylinders are already in production. These high-performance cylinders for Nikola trucks were developed in close cooperation to meet the engineering requirements of Nikola Corporation. Nikola has started a series production aiming for a couple of hundred trucks by the end of 2023 with Hexagon Purus tanks onboard.
The Department of Energy has recently announced providing up to $7 billion to establish seven H2Hubs across America. These projects will accelerate a national effort toward clean hydrogen production, deployment, and all the infrastructure enabling generation, storage, delivery, and fueling and other types of small and large-scale projects. These developments offer businesses like Hydrogen Purus a monumental opportunity to adapt and deploy early in the transition to a hydrogen-based economy.
Source : Forbes