Australia’s Fortescue Future Industries (FFI) has acquired a 60% stake in the HyET group. In addition, the company provides financing for the expansion of the HyeT plant in the Netherlands.
Fortescue Future Industries (FFI) is the renewable energy division of the Fortescue Metals Group. This is the iron ore company in Australia and the fourth largest iron ore producer in the world for several years. FFI is building a global portfolio of renewable green hydrogen and ammonia companies to help make the parent company’s iron ore production more sustainable. Fortescue wants to be CO2 neutral by 2030.
Power
The High Production Energy Technologies (HyET) group consists of two companies: HyET Hydrogen and HyET Solar. HyET Solar develops and produces cheap and efficient solar cell chips – Powerfoil with thin-film solar cells – that are lightweight and flexible. HyET Solar owner Rombout Swamborn presented production capacity to Solar Magazine editors in 2021 last year Want to reach the peak of 900 MW.
HyET Hydrogen focuses on developing and selling cost-effective solutions for hydrogen storage and distribution. It is developing an innovative hydrogen compression and extraction technology based on electrochemical processes.
1 gigawatt plant
The capital contributed by FFI will be used to expand the Dutch HyET Solar plant Powerfoil, among other things. For Fortescue, the acquisition of HyET Group represents a significant milestone toward its goal of producing 15 million tons of green hydrogen worldwide by 2030.
Julie Shuttleworth, CEO of FFI, commented: “We have begun the design study for the 1GW peak Powerfoil plant in Australia, and at this scale we want to reduce costs faster and faster than can be achieved with conventional solar panel technology. HyET Hydrogen technology will support us in lowering costs in other parts of the green hydrogen supply chain.
2 goals
“Green energy needs to be globally available on an industrial scale and we don’t have time to wait, we need to act now,” said Andrew Forrest, FFI founder and president of Fortescue. “HyET’s technologies will help us reach this tipping point and the world will begin our decarbonization journey in earnest.”
SuperNova NV – the founding partner of the HyET Group – and Royal Vopak remain the only other shareholders of the HyET companies. FFI and SuperNova have also agreed in principle to extend their cooperation to other current and future activities of the HyET Group. Rombot Swanborn, founder and director of HyET Hydrogen and HyET Solar, concludes: “We are delighted to join forces with FFI. Not only does this allow us to more effectively contribute to the creation of renewable energy infrastructure, but now we can also significantly increase the scope of our operations – two important goals since we started our business. “
