Belgian electrolyser manufacturer John Cockerill has raised €230m ($250m) in its latest funding round for its hydrogen business, with investment led by oil services firm SLB.
Other investors in the round, due to close at the end of this month, include the Belgian federal government’s financial arm SFPIM and Wallonie Entreprendre, the Wallonia region’s public fund.
While the size of each firm’s investment has not been publicly disclosed, local reports in February suggested that SFPIM would provide €50m in direct capital and Wallonie Entreprendre €50m in a convertible loan.
John Cockerill will retain a majority stake in its hydrogen business, but the company has not released details of the new ownership structure.
SLB, formerly Schlumberger, also plans to form a strategic partnership with John Cockerill to deploy its next generation of pressurised alkaline electrolysers.
Alkaline electrolysers operating with atmospheric pressures take several minutes to ramp up and down in response to power input, making it difficult for these to track intermittent renewable electricity. But pressurised alkaline equipment is similar to proton exchange membrane (PEM) electrolysers in being able to respond to fluctuating power input much more quickly.
John Cockerill plans to expand its manufacturing capacity on a global scale following this fund raise, as part of its strategy to localise electrolyser production to target markets.
The company already has a gigawatt-scale factory in China, an electrolyser cell manufacturing site in France and a stack assembly facility in Belgium.
Its US site is currently under construction and expected to produce its first electrolysers from the end of this year.
The firm also plans to set up manufacturing capacity in India, the UAE, Vietnam and Morocco.
John Cockerill also has a 40% stake in Rely, an EPC joint venture with Technip Energies, which was in February rumoured to take 10% of the Belgian firm’s hydrogen business under the new ownership structure.
