After an aerial hole in the French industrial industry of hydrogen, marked by the bankruptcy and sales of companies, the sector, crucial for the decarbonation, is now in the process of “consolidation”, estimates that Matthieu Guesné, president of the Lhyfe green hydrogen group, born in Vendée.
“We are entering a market consolidation period, the less financed and the most fragile companies disappear because the market has become more difficult, but consolidates around the players who become stronger,” he said.
Despite the enthusiasm for hydrogen, since the health crisis, given as a solution to decarbonize industry and heavy transport, the sector accumulates failures: not realization or delays in projects, bankruptcies and transfers feel each other in France. While technologies are not yet mature, decarbon hydrogen is still too expensive and is not competitive in front of gas and oil products that it aspires to supplant, especially due to the high price of electricity in the old continent, summarizes analysts.
Recent couples in Airbus, Safra and McPy
After the postponement of Airbus of the emblematic hydrogen aircraft project, the only French Hydrogen bus manufacturer Safra, based in the TARN, spent Tuesday under the Chinese pavilion after its bankruptcy. And in mid -May, McPy Electrolysers producer was placed in liquidation, less than a year after the inauguration of a new factory in Belfort.
But Matthieu Guesné, like many others, continues to believe. Former Director of the Police Station for Atomic Energy and the alternative energies of the Pays de la Loire and Brittany, this electronics and computer engineer founded the HYF in 2017, dedicated to the energy transition, which produces and provides green and renewable hydrogen.
The start-up opened in 2021 the first site of industrial hydrogen production in the world directly linked to a wind farm, in Bouin in Vendée, which brings green electricity to produce hydrogen molecules through water electrolysis. It unfolds from production sites worldwide.
Significant progress in the transport sector
The only discarking needs of the heavy industry are enough to justify the return of optimism, according to Matthieu Guesné: 100 million tons of “gray” hydrogen, a highly CO2 emitter, occur every year on the planet, consumed by the oil, steel or chemical industry. This arouses the issuance of one billion tons of CO2 in the atmosphere per year with 35 billion tons of greenhouse gases issued on the planet, or 3% of the total.
Even in the transport, the announcement during the recent Choice France summit of a Franco-German joint venture installed in South Mer Fos to decarbonize the aviation goes in the same direction. The French gigafactor developer for the production of HY2V green hydrogen and the German hydrogen producer Hy2Gen invest 1.5 billion euros together, to produce sustainable plane fuel, according to hydrogen.
“We are talking about projects, which must be approved, financed and then launched, we work in cycles of several years, but things advance,” said Philippe Guillemot, CEO of Valloule in BFM Business on Thursday. The manufacturer of welding tubes waiting for June the approval of the first industrial hydrogen storage system in the world, is working with H2V in aviation fuel projects.
Leave the “Death Valley”
For its part, Lhyfe has just won 53 million euros in banking funds for four electrolysis sites, three in France and one in Germany. “It is structuring and a signal for the European market: we have obtained for the first time the support of the banks, of which Edmond de Rotschild. In general, banks are the last to finance the risk,” he said.
Until now, depending on its clients, industrial funds and subsidies, Hyfe can expect to leave the “Death Valley” of new emerging companies that are struggling to become a substantial company due to lack of funds.
In the process, Lhyfe has launched citizen financing of hydrogen projects promising “good performance” for those who agree to place their savings in the sector. “We have launched it on the Lita platform, we want people to place their hydrogen money and earn money in return,” he explains.
Source: BFM TV
