Sheffield-based ‘clean fuel’ company ITM Power has entered into a 50/50 joint venture with Linde AG Group to deliver hydrogen to large-scale industrial projects (
www.itm-power.com).
ITM (itm-power.com) intends to raise at least £52 million through a fund-raising round to “enhance the Group’s manufacturing capabilities, particularly for the development and production of large scale 5MW electrolysers”, to fund its initial financial contribution to the joint venture and provide “working capital and balance sheet strength to support the delivery of the contract backlog and opportunity pipeline”.
Linde will appoint a non-executive director to ITM’s board following completion of the share subscription. The Linde Group is an engineering company and a leading world-wide supplier of industrial, process and speciality gases and was formed by the merger of Germany-based Linde AG and US-based Praxair in 2017.
ITM CEO Graham Cooley said: “This major investment from Linde cements a five-year relationship between us and provides ITM Power with a world-leading partner that brings deep expertise in engineering, procurement and construction and a global customer base.
“The joint venture will enable us to focus on our core competency — the development and sale of electrolysers; and with Linde as our partner, to deliver green hydrogen at scale.
“We are seeing increasing global demand for hydrogen as a solution to renewable energy storage needs and the decarbonisation of major industrial processes.
"The fundraising and our partnership with Linde will help us to meet this demand on a growing scale, and deliver efficiencies throughout our supply chain; they also represent a significant step on our path to medium-term profitability.”