Companies in the green hydrogen sector got some cheery news with the recent passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, which dedicates funds to help green hydrogen compete with other forms of energy. Part of the money will go toward improving the cost efficiency of green hydrogen, an emissions-free fuel produced from solar, water, and wind sources rather than fossil fuels.
One company that stands to benefit is Electric Hydrogen, a Boston-based startup that designs manufacturing facilities that extract hydrogen from water using renewable energy. The process itself is called electrolysis and uses electrolyzer technology.
Electric Hydrogen (EH2) bills itself as a “deep carbonization company” that aims to pioneer low-cost and fossil-free hydrogen systems with a focus on industrial applications.
Electric Hydrogen aims to help eliminate more than 30% of global greenhouse gas emissions from hard-to-electrify industries such as steel, ammonia, and freight transport.
As Bloomberg reported, Electric Hydrogen isn’t the only company that makes its living with electrolyzer technology. Among the others that sell electrolyzers are Bloom Energy and Cummins. But EH2 takes it a step further by designing entire plants around electrolyzer technology, which CEO Raffi Garabedian says is a key to cutting costs and improving efficiency.
The plants are still in the development stage. When they are up and running, they’ll require 100 megawatts of electricity and be able to produce as much as 48 tons of hydrogen per day, depending on the electricity source. Customers that need more output can order another plant.
“We’re able to condense all the infrastructure into a much smaller footprint, and that reduces the cost,” Garabedian told Bloomberg in an interview.
Garabedian co-founded Electric Hydrogen in 2020 along with David Eaglesham, the company’s chief technology officer; Derek Warnick, the chief financial officer; and Dorian West, the executive vice president-engineering. The team brought aboard a wealth of experience in green energy and finance, with combined professional backgrounds that included stints with First Solar, Tesla, Pellion Technologies, the World Bank, and Breakthrough Energy Ventures.
In the two years since its founding, EH2 has already lined up an impressive roster of climate tech investors, including Breakthrough Energy, Prelude Ventures, Capricorn Investment Group, Energy Impact Partners, Fifth Wall Climate Tech, and S2G Ventures. EH2 also has partnerships with strategic investors like Amazon Decarbonization Fund, Honeywell, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, and Rio Tinto.
EH2 got a major financial boost on June 22 when it raised $198 million in a series B funding round led by Fifth Wall Climate Tech and featuring participation from S2G Ventures, Silicon Valley Bank, and Trinity Capital.
The funding will help EH2 ramp up its operation, including the deployment of demonstration projects to produce green hydrogen at a large scale for industrial and infrastructure applications.
“This funding round fuels the next phase of our evolution,” Garabedian said in a statement. “We’ve demonstrated our enabling core technology, built an amazing team, and now have the capital we need to get our technology out into the world and start curbing emissions. Just as importantly, the participation of strategic partners at the forefront of the industries we are poised to decarbonize provides vital insight that will facilitate and accelerate our path to market.”
As EH2 notes on its website, industries such as mining, steel production, and agriculture are among the most difficult to decarbonize. The company aims to meet the challenge through its patented approach to producing hydrogen from electricity and water, specially designed for high-volume, low-cost production required to support massive industrial operations. The company’s systems run on 100% clean energy.
In a press release, Fifth Wall Partner Peter Gajdoš called the funding round “the biggest step yet” toward decarbonizing hard-to-decarbonize industries.
“We’ve been searching for the most promising answers to that challenge and found one in EH2,” Gajdoš said. “Their team, cross-disciplinary expertise, and visionary technology place them at the forefront of the race to make deep cuts in industrial emissions with compelling economics.”
