thyssenkrupp nucera to drive green hydrogen growth

thyssenkrupp Uhde Chlorine Engineers has been rebranded thyssenkrupp nucera to focus on the 'new era of hydrogen business'.

The rebrand was unveiled at the company's Capital Markets Day in Essen at the thyssenkrupp Headquarters.

The management team led by CEO Denis Krude said the company’s decade-long experience in chlor-alkali electrolysis provides a strong basis for its alkaline water electrolysis (AWE) technology, enabling its customers to transform to net zero.

thyssenkrupp AG, currently examining how to develop the hydrogen business, is targeting an IPO which would make it possible for the capital market to apply a market value to the business and the proceeds used to finance further growth.

The name nucera is composed of “new”, “UCE” and “era” and symbolises the departure for the business into a new era of innovation, transformation, and green energy.

Volkmar Dinstuhl, CEO of thyssenkrupp’s Segment Multi Tracks, said the green transformation of the industry is a task for the next decades.

"The complete system change can only be accomplished together with a common vision and when we rethink existing systems," he said. "This needs the right investment, technology, business model as well as lean processes. thyssenkrupp nucera has a solid basis and the right competencies to pave the way. This new brand in our thyssenkrupp family is an important step towards fostering our electrolysis leadership position – with blueprint technologies and business cases for the world.”

Krude said it was taking off from a strong position in the chlor-alkali market with best-in-class technology and a yearly gigawatt supply chain.

"It is our aim to become the number one technology leader for large-scale industrial green hydrogen production in the AWE market”, he said. “The industry is ready for the energy transition and we are ready to deliver the technology needed to achieve net-zero in sectors that cannot be electrified and for processes with hard-to-abate emissions.”

With over 600 projects, 240,000 electrolytic cell elements produced and over 10 GW of electrolyzer capacity installed, thyssenkrupp nucera is a market leader in the chlor-alkali sector. Its experience in the chlor-alkali business stretches over five decades, providing a strong basis for the AWE technology and scale-up. 

Targeting growth in AWE market

thyssenkrupp nucera offers an attractive financial profile ready to scale up quickly due to the modularised product business. The chlor-alkali business has generated stable revenues in the past years.

Around half of the sales are generated by highly profitable holistic life cycle services which ensures recurring revenues and high visibility. At the same time, the company has all the advantages of an industrial supplier for green hydrogen production – including a strong order backlog that generates significant growth.

Revenues have grown by around 25 % from €255 million in 2019/20 to €319 million in 2020/21. As of December 31, 2021 order backlog for green hydrogen is already around €900 million. The EBIT of thyssenkrupp nucera developed with very slight fluctuations to €27 million.

The focus on AWE growth will fundamentally change the scope of thyssenkrupp nucera in the years to come. By 2024/2025, the business aims to drive AWE and achieve around €600-700 million of revenues and continue to grow strongly thereafter.

The hydrogen market is expected not only to increase sevenfold by 2050, but most of the previously fossil-based production will be converted to green hydrogen. The additional demand will come significantly from new applications and thus from many different sectors, such as power generation and storage, building heating and power supply, transport, and industrial energy and raw materials.

The AWE order backlog includes two of the world’s largest hydrogen projects: In December, thyssenkrupp nucera signed a contract to supply a more than 2GW electrolysis plant for one of the world’s largest green hydrogen projects at NEOM in Saudi Arabia.

In addition to this, thyssenkrupp nucera collaborates with Royal Dutch Shell on Europe’s largest green hydrogen project, Hydrogen Holland I, in the port of Rotterdam.

For this project, thyssenkrupp nucera will engineer, procure and fabricate a more than 200MW plant. This backlog volume demonstrates thyssenkrupp nucera’s technology leadership and competitiveness in AWE as well as its expertise in industrial green hydrogen production.

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