FuelCell Energy and ExxonMobil Technology and Engineering Company (EMTEC) have renewed and expanded their partnership to improve a specialist technology that captures carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from factories while simultaneously producing electricity and hydrogen.
The joint development agreement between the US-based businesses has now been extended until the end of 2026. This extension will allow for the continued development of the technology.
Esso Nederland’s VB Rotterdam manufacturing complex has already been selected as a pilot project location to trial the technology.
The pilot is co-funded by the European Union under the Emissions Trading System Innovation Fund and by the Netherlands Enterprise Agency through the Demonstration Energy and Climate Innovation (DEI+) grant.
Jason Few, CEO and President of FuelCell Energy, said the agreement will more quickly provide access to the technology in the company’s existing platform, targeting small to mid-scale opportunities while demonstrating large-scale capture in Rotterdam.
He continued, “Reaching this stage is a significant milestone for FuelCell Energy, as the technology so far has met or exceeded key technical performance criteria, and that’s a victory for the scientists and engineers from both of our companies.”
“It also reinforces our view that there are significant commercial possibilities for this technology to enable a world empowered by clean energy.”
If proven successful, the technology could improve the economics of carbon capture and potentially lower the barrier to broader adoption of carbon capture in the marketplace.
The joint development agreement extension also provides FuelCell Energy the opportunity to pursue carbon capture opportunities with customers using the optimised carbon capture cell architecture within its current generation module design, incorporating select improvements derived from the joint development work.
FuelCell Energy believes that by incorporating improvements from the Exxon deal into its current generation modules, it will enhance the capabilities of its power, hydrogen, and carbon recovery solutions and will offer more attractive near-term carbon capture solutions.
In addition to the above, the duo will also continue to engage with the industrial emitter market, focusing on demonstrating the value proposition offered through capturing CO2 emissions from an external source and produce electricity and hydrogen simultaneously.
source: gasworld.com (Molly Burgess)