UK Government Award £9.3m for Gigastack Testing

ITM Power PLC

(“ITM Power”, “the Group” or the “Company”)

Award of UK Government Contract to Develop 5 MW Gigastack Testing Platform

ITM Power (AIM: ITM), the energy storage and clean fuel company, announces that the Company has been awarded a contract by The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), under its Net Zero Innovation Portfolio Low Carbon Hydrogen Supply 2 Competition, to accelerate the commercial deployment of ITM Power’s 5 MW Gigastack platform and its manufacture. The award for the Gigatest project is for £9.3m and follows initial designs developed through previous BEIS funding competitions. 

The 5 MW Gigastack platform sits at the heart of the Group’s technology roadmap.  Development commenced in 2019 with the completion of a feasibility study funded by the BEIS Low Carbon Hydrogen Supply Competition. This was followed by a second phase, also funded by the BEIS Low Carbon Hydrogen Supply Competition and covered two streams: a Front-End Engineering Design (FEED) study for a 100 MW deployment at Philips66 and Orsted in the Humber region and the development and validation of the Gigastack platform.  The second phase concluded in 2021.

As announced in the half year results in January, the testing programme for the 5 MW Gigastack platform includes both component level and full-scale evaluation.  Gigastack is 2.5 times larger than ITM Power’s previous state-of-the-art stack platform and it will undergo rigorous testing in representative conditions to validate the performance through real-world conditions, ensuring the technology is ready for large-scale commercialisation.  This 4th-generation stack has multiple competitive advantages including lower capital costs and a smaller system footprint.  These advantages will enhance the stack’s ability to operate under flexible conditions when coupled to renewable energy sources, producing green hydrogen at low cost.

Gigatest will also enable the deployment and validation of key manufacturing equipment at the existing Gigafactory and the second, more automated facility on which construction commences later this year.  This validation will contribute to the subsequent initiation of semi-automated mass-production of electrolyser stacks.

Graham Cooley, CEO, said: “The UK Government has put green hydrogen at the centre of its plans to achieve its legislated Net Zero targets.  This was underlined by the recent doubling of green hydrogen to 5 GW in the Energy Strategy published last month.  Awards under competitions like this will ensure that the UK remains a world leader in energy transition technology and manufacture, creating jobs, new supply chains and valuable high-tech exports.”

Greg Hands, Energy Minister at BEIS, added: “The UK is truly leading the world in hydrogen innovation thanks to the exciting efforts of companies like ITM Power.

“The government support which they have received today will help to boost the development of hydrogen as the clean, affordable, homegrown superfuel of the future.”

For further information please visit www.itm-power.com or contact:

ITM Power PLC
James Collins, Investor Relations +44 (0)114 551 1205
Justin Scarborough, Investor Relations +44 (0)114 551 1080

Investec Bank plc (Nominated Adviser and Broker)
Jeremy Ellis / Chris Sim / Ben Griffiths +44 (0)20 7597 5970

Tavistock (Financial PR and IR)
Simon Hudson / David Cracknell / Tim Pearson +44 (0)20 7920 3150

About ITM Power PLC:

ITM Power manufactures integrated hydrogen energy solutions for grid balancing, energy storage and the production of renewable hydrogen for transport, renewable heat and chemicals. ITM Power PLC was admitted to the AIM market of the London Stock Exchange in 2004. In October 2019, the Company announced the completion of a £58.8m fundraising, including an investment by Linde of £38m, together with the formation of a joint venture to deliver renewable hydrogen to large-scale industrial projects worldwide. In November 2020, ITM Power completed a £172m fundraising, including a £30m investment by Snam, one of the world's leading energy infrastructure operators. In January 2021, the Company received an order for the world's then largest PEM electrolyser of 24MW from Linde. In October 2021, the Company, with Linde, announced the deployment of a 100MW electrolyser at Shell's Rhineland refinery, following the start-up of an initial 10MW facility at the site. In November 2021, ITM Power raised £250m to accelerate expansion.

ITM Power operates from the world's largest electrolyser factory in Sheffield with a capacity of 1GW (1,000MW) per annum, with the announced intention to build a second UK Gigafactory in Sheffield with a capacity of 1.5GW expected to be fully operational by the end of 2023. The Group's first international facility, expected to have a capacity of 2.5GW per annum, is intended to be operational by the end of 2024, bringing total Group capacity to 5GW per annum. Customers and partners include Sumitomo, Ørsted, Phillips 66, Scottish Power, Siemens Gamesa, Cadent, Northern Gas Networks, Gasunie, RWE, Engie, GNVert, National Express, Toyota, Hyundai and Anglo American among others.

Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy

This funding has been made available from the Government’s £1 billion Net Zero Innovation Portfolio, which aims to support innovation in the supply of hydrogen. This competition looks to provide funding for projects that can help develop a wide range of innovative low-carbon hydrogen supply solutions.

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