Siemens Energy will locate its industrial electrolyser factory in Berlin with production start-up slated for 2023.
The multi-gigawatt capacity factory is located in Huttenstrasse in Berlin’s Moabit locality.
New production lines for the electrolysers are being set up in an area of 2000 square metres at an investment cost of around €30m.
Today, the site mainly manufactures gas turbines, which can already be operated with up to 50% hydrogen.
By 2030 complete hydrogen operation should be possible.
Christian Bruch, president and CEO of Siemens Energy, said: “With the new production facility for hydrogen electrolysers, we are reinforcing our claim to play an active role in shaping the energy transition.
“To this end, we are pooling our knowledge in the field of various energy technologies in Berlin. For us, hydrogen is an important component of the future energy world.
“For this to be economically viable, the manufacturing costs for electrolysers must be significantly reduced.
“With our new production facility, we are helping to make hydrogen competitive sooner.”
At the Berlin location, the individual electrolyser cells will be manufactured and combined to form functional modules, or stacks.
Depending on the required capacity, these will then be assembled into larger process-based units.
In Germany, this last stage will take place at Mülheim, near the new Berlin plant, so that production is can transition to mass production:
Siemens Energy is making its electrolysers using proton exchange membrane (PEM) technology.
Water is separated into hydrogen and oxygen using a proton-permeable membrane and electricity.