ITM Power manufactures integrated hydrogen energy equipment to enhance the utilisation of renewable energy that would otherwise be wasted and specializes in electrolysers, and hydrogen for fuel cell products. On 22 February 2017 Royal Dutch Shell opened its first Hydrogen Refuelling station in the UK and the first in the UK to be sited on a forecourt. The station was supplied by ITM Power.
Hydrogen stations
ITM Power opened its first publicly accessible hydrogen station in September 2015. The station was the first in the UK to use excess wind energy and water to generate hydrogen on-site using electrolysis. The station is located at the Advanced Manufacturing Park, Rotherham. The second station was opened May 2016 and is located at the National Physical Laboratory and was the first of the stations to be opened under the HyFive project. The station was officially opened by Andrew Jones MP, Transport Minister at the Department for Transport The third station to open was at CEME and uses excess solar electricity to generate the hydrogen gas. This was the second HyFive station to open. The fourth station was opened 22 February 2017, and it was the first hydrogen station in the UK to be located on a forecourt. The station is also Shell's first Hydrogen Station in the UK and it is located at Cobham services. This was the final HyFive station to be opened.
Power to Gas
is a methodology for introducing hydrogen to the natural gas network, essentially converting renewable electrical power to a clean gas that can be more conveniently stored using existing assets. There are two main power to gas mechanisms. The first involves metering pressurised hydrogen into the gas network directly. The second involves combining hydrogen with carbon dioxide via a methanation process to produce synthetic natural gas prior to introduction to the grid. ITM’s HGas product brings together Rapid Response Electrolysis and self-pressurising PEM electrolysis into a fully integrated package. HGas is capable of addressing MW scale applications. HGas accommodates fluctuating power profiles while generating hydrogen at pressures suitable for either direct injection into natural gas networks (assisting grid balancing or via methanation processes without additional compression.
History
ITM Power was created in June 2001, and was the first United Kingdom-based fuel cell company that went public. Founded in June 2001, the company floated on the Alternative Investment Market in 2004, an action which raised £10 million. The company's revenues increased from £8,000 in the fiscal year ending April 2011 to £480,000 in the fiscal year ending April 2012. The company made its first sale in June 2010, when it provided an electrolyser for the University of Birmingham. Their fuel cells differ from traditional ones since they use a hydrocarbon membrane, instead of a fluorocarbon membrane. February 2004 Peter Hargreaves joined ITM Power as a Non-Executive Director. In May 2006, Roger Putnam CBE, was appointed as the independent Non-Executive Director of ITM Power. That month, ITM Power also raised around £29 million by placing 9,189,235 Ordinary Shares at 320p each. In June 2009, Graham Cooley was made CEO of ITM Power. On 4 June 2014 Sir Roger Bone joined the Board as Non-Executive Director. Roger has been President of Boeing UK since September 2005 In March 2015 JCB made a strategic investment of £4.9M in ITM power. On 29 September 2017 the company announced a placing of New Ordinary Shares to Raise £25 Million and Proposed Open Offer to Raise up to £4.4 Million
UKH2Mobility
UKH2Mobility is a new government and cross-industry programme to make hydrogen powered travel in the UK a reality. Industry signatories to the Memorandum of Understanding are: •Air Liquide Hydrogen Energy, SA •Air Products PLC •Daimler AG •Hyundai Motor Company •Intelligent Energy Limited •ITM Power PLC •Johnson Matthey PLC •Nissan Motor Manufacturing Limited •Scottish and Southern Energy plc •Tata Motors European Technical Centre plc •The BOC Group Limited •Toyota Motor Corporation •Vauxhall Motors A synopsis of Phase 1 of the programme published by UKH2Mobility on 4 February 2013 also includes the mix of production methods able to provide cost-competitive hydrogen to the consumer while delivering very significant CO² emissions reductions.
Hydrogen On Site Trials (HOST)
Hydrogen On Site Trials is a trial of ITM Power’s transportable high pressure refuelling unit which was built with support from the Technology Strategy Board and was launched at Stansted Airport in March 2011. HFuel is suited to small fleet and early "hydrogen highway" applications of both fuel cell and hydrogen engine vehicles. It is based around a modular platform and can be expanded at any point after the initial installation enabling a staged roll out of hydrogen fuel. Membership of HOST provides partners with a one-week free trial of HFuel and the two Ford HICE transit vehicles. ITM personnel manage and operate the demonstrations with liaison with site owners’ operations and management. 21 commercial partners joined the HOST trials from seven different industrial sectors
The Ecoisland Partnership CIC project brings together a number of key companies of smart energy technologies to demonstrate how a future energy system can be configured on an island. With renewable generation including solar, wind, tidal and geothermal the island will need to match supply and demand using battery energy storage, hydrogen energy storage and demand side management. These technologies will be coordinated centrally by smart grid technologies supplied by IBM, Cable & Wireless Worldwide, SSE and Toshiba. ITM Power is the hydrogen fuel partner and will supply hydrogen refueling equipment controlled by smart grid technology to optimize both renewable energy storage and the provision of fuel to both fuel cell vehicles and Hydrogen Internal Combustion Engine commercial vehicles.
Green energy project
In July 2012, ITM Power, along with four other companies, was selected by the Technology Strategy Board innovation agency and the Department of Energy and Climate Change in the United Kingdom to develop ways of using clean energy on transport systems. ITM's assigned project was to build an electrolysis based hydrogen refueller to be used as transport fuel on the Isle of Wight. The plan is to make the Isle of Wight carbon neutral, by having residents create fuel at their home. The company is part of the Ecoisland Partnership CIC.
Nottingham University refuelling station
ITM Power installed an electrolyser driven hydrogen refueling station named Hfuel at the University of Nottingham. The refuelling station can provide hydrogen at 350 bar to vehicles and 150 bar to the university's laboratory. ITM Power wrote a report detailing the process of Electrolysation, and the impact of the Hfuel refueller at the university.
Iwatani collaboration agreement
In 2019, ITM Power signed a collaboration agreement with Iwatani Corporation of America, a wholly owned subsidiary of Japan's Iwatani Corporation, for the deployment of multi megawatt electrolyser-based hydrogen energy systems in North America. The partnership will see the two companies pursue their shared vision of reducing pollutants and improving air quality by offering renewable hydrogen to the transportation, energy storage and renewable energy sectors in North America.
