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Industrie De Nora is a partner of the Crete-Aegean Hydrogen Valley (Crave-H2) initiative: an 11.2 million European project, of which almost 8 with contributions from the European Commission, for the creation of a hub dedicated to the production of green hydrogen on the island of Crete, in the port of Atherinolakkos. The hydrogen will be partly stored and used in the grid when needed, converted into electricity via fuel cells, and partly used as a fuel for local public mobility. De Nora will supply the “compact” Dragonfly electrolyser, with 4 MW capacity, to produce over 500 tonnes of hydrogen per year. A commitment of 4.7 million euros (of which 3.3 covered by the European contribution), the largest among the initiative’s partners, which also includes the Polytechnic of Turin. The project, promoted by the Clean Hydrogen Partnership of which the European Commission is part, will last until May 2028.
Decarbonization of steel
The De Nora group is also involved in the European HyTecHeat project, together with other Italian companies such as Rina, Snam, Tenova, Nunki Steel, Dalmine, for the creation of a prototype of a multi-fuel combustion system which intends to validate hybrid heating technologies based on natural gas with progressive increase in hydrogen, to decarbonize a traditionally hard-to-abate sector such as steel.
Small size electrolyser
«We decided to enter the market with the small-sized Dragonfly electrolyser, from 1 up to a maximum of 7-8 MW of capacity, for decentralized markets where green hydrogen is produced on site in small quantities: a typical aspect of Italian industrial structure. The idea is to serve markets outside those covered by the supply of electrodes by Thyssenkrupp Nucera (the joint venture between Thyssenkrupp and De Nora, ed.), for which we are talking about capacity of 200-300 MW. Dragonfly was in fact born from a study carried out with Snam also in view of the IPCEI tender, which we then won and thanks to which we are building a factory in Cernusco sul Naviglio, near Milan, which will be operational from 2026 and within which we will produce our own the Dragonfly for the Italian market and secondly the electrodes to implement, due to the increase in demand, the production capacity needs linked to hydrogen. Globally, as per the industrial plan, we expect to expand it to 4.5 GW by 2026 from the current 2.5. The Italian demand for hydrogen in Italy is stimulated by Pnrr: ceramics, small steel mills, mobility, are all sectors from which the requests come”, says Lorenzo Antozzi, director of Energy Transition & Hydrogen at De Nora.
Accelerate energy transition
Paolo Dellachà, CEO of De Nora, an Italian multinational listed on Euronext Milan and specialized in electrochemistry, confirms: «The latest generation containerized electrolyser recently launched on the market represents a cutting-edge asset in the hydrogen value chain, contributing to the decarbonisation process of various industrial sectors and playing a fundamental role in the field of mobility. De Nora is at the center of strategic projects at a national, European and global level and in this context Dragonfly confirms itself as a leading product for accelerating the energy transition in specific markets”.