Is the race already over for Western Electrolyzer Producers ? I just returned from an intense 15 day trip to China for TES to evaluate the best #electrolyzers for our #eNG projects around the world to offer a truly sustainable, scalable, fast and economic replacement of fossil gas for our customers in the US, Canada, Europe, Japan and Korea. We all know the amazing prices published for Chinese electrolyzers, costing a fraction of Western OEMs offerings despite comparable or even better performance data. I am an old fashioned engineer, i need to see the real thing, not just slides, so I went to Shanghai, Beijing, Chengdu, Wuxi, Hanandong and a few other cities to meet leadership and technology teams of Sungrow Power Supply Co., Ltd. , #Peric and LONGi Hydrogen. We had already worked with them on RFPs and after detailed reviews we visited each companies manufacturing sites to get a first hand impression of work conditions, quality assurance, suppliers, automation level, utilization of capacity, etc for stacks as well as BOP like gas separation, purification, rectifiers & transformers, test procedures, etc followed by a visit to an up and running system at a customer to validate real power consumptions, ramp rates, gas qualities at various load rates, etc. I have visited several western OEMs in the past months as shown in my previous posts and I must admit: i am truly happy for #TES and our customers to see the amazing quality, reference installations and performance of all three Chinese players systems, coz they will allow us to reduce eNG costs massively. The prices and design of their pre-engineered, pre-fabricated modular systems in the 5-20MW range are allowing to minimize engineering and construction scope in the West - something that causes total system CAPEX to be 3-4 times stack price here while complete package from China including on-site construction and remaining engineering will come in at less than half total costs. This is not due to cheap labor alone, it‘s mostly the scale which they already achieved in their factories, the standardization and automation. In one manufacturing shop they were working on 13 parallel orders for 5-20MW systems including stacks, gas separation and purification modules, rectifiers, containers for PLCs etc. Driven by Chinese demand, supported by strong orders from India and countries like Uzbek, etc they rapidly improve and cost optimize. At the same time I am deeply worried about EU OEMs: We have great companies working on great products, but we are too slow, too expensive. Our hydrogen backbone is delayed/stretched out to 2037 for a mere 10,000km while the existing gas grid is 500,000km. We drive subsidies in an ideologic way, keeping fast and auditable fully green solutions like #eNG and #e-Methanol out of initial funding rounds and favor #Ammonia or local #hydrogen production, despite no infrastructure for years and technology gaps. Regulation and politics kill us - the race is almost over - wake up !!
Stefan Klink
4w
Refreshing to read the statements of a large projecr developer, Jens Schmidt. I am wondering though, how you assess the performance of Chinese stacks against EU counterparts - and I know those within the EU are quite different to each other. But what we hear from the Sinopec project (min. turn-down higher than 40% etc.) does not resonate well with your statements. Are we facing much better (proven, not promised) performances from Chinese players in the near future? Do you have any numbers/expectations you could share?
Thanks for the post. Reading your post, I see some very opportunistic statements. I dont think we are too expensive, too slow, we wait for subsidies only to invest. We regulate and we take decissions after long political discussions. Yes, that is how it works in the EU. But, that does not mean that the chinese and indian manufacturers deliver the best if you consider all parameters, political, decission making, subsidies, labor rules, technology, quality, time & delivery in relation with Capex&Opex. Cheap and fast never leads to good sustainable results. Else, they would not invest outside their own country.
It’s rather the opposite: a lot of changes so costs are needed to make and keep design and O&M save and comply with EU regulation. Let’s consider TCO instead of CAPEX, and zero incidents!
Olivier SINS
3w
Jens, The story is already written... Your assumption is accurate , however you missed further suppliers in China. Remember Longi started only 2y ago, and Sungrow is not ready fo EU Market delivery until some time, Jingli is an empty shelf...Saying that there is a lack of experience anyway in the electrolysis business, from EU or China. Building a Plant in EU from China will be more challenging w/o local partner. Last, maybe the informations you catched should you not disclosed in this media, for confidentiality reasons ?
Einerseits traurige Aussichten für europäische Hersteller, ähnlich wie bei PV und Batterien, anderseits zeigt es die Bedeutung, die China dem Wasserstoff beimisst, auch im genannten Bereich 5 - 20 MW, der für den dezentralen Einsatz geeignet ist. Interessant wäre noch zu erfahren, wofür der auf diese Weise in noch relativ bescheidenen Mengen erzeugte Wasserstoff verwendet werden soll.
Terje Hauan
4w
Maybe just as well as electrolysers, yet again, will fade into oblivion during the next ten years.
Thanks Jens, that's insightful. What would you figure the total Capex (range) could be for a 100 MW electrolyzer system in Europe, based on the Chinese electrolyzers you describe? It's reported to be over 2,000 €/kW when using European electrolyzers.
Vielen Dank, Jens, für den Einblick und die großartige Analyse, die Sie geteilt haben. Ich habe nicht ganz verstanden, ob man am Ende Made in China vertraut....
Hello Jens, Thanks a lot for these precious insights. About your statement : "Pre-fabricated modular systems in the 5-20MW range are allowing to minimize engineering and construction scope in the West - something that causes total system CAPEX to be 3-4 times stack price here while complete package from China including on-site construction and remaining engineering will come in at less than half total costs" I was under the impression that most of western OEMs had come as well with standardized pre-engineered module design (except the few atmospheric electrolyzers that require stacks to be assembled at site). Could you please detail what features of chinese electrolyzers make them more pre-engineered than their western counterparts ? From my standpoint, an efficient solution to minimize erection costs is to come with outdoorized solutions (no building required)