Sheffield-based energy storage and clean-fuel company ITM Power (www.itm-power.com) is partnering with Shell to build what is expected to be the world’s largest hydrogen electrolysis plant.

Shell’s Rhineland refinery — Germany’s largest — currently requires about 180,000 tonnes of hydrogen annually, which is produced by steam reforming from natural gas.

The new facility will have a peak capacity of 10MW and be able to produce an additional 1,300 tonnes of hydrogen per year.

This will be used for the processing and upgrading of products at the refinery’s Wesseling site, as well as testing the technology and exploring its application in other sectors.

The European partner consortium of Shell, ITM Power, SINTEF, Thinkstep and Element Energy has now secured £8.8 million in funding from the European Fuel Cell Hydrogen Joint Undertaking, to support a total investment of £17.7 million.

Detailed technical planning will now begin, and the plant — named ‘Refhyne’ — should be operational in 2020.