Plansee needs large quantities of hydrogen for its production lines, with the plant used to generate the hydrogen from water and electricity being operated by the company Linde. The hydrogen electrolyzer will be installed in an existing building on the Plansee premises in Breitenwang. It will have an output of four megawatts and can generate up to 800 cubic meters of hydrogen per hour at a purity of 99.999 percent. All the electricity needed to power the electrolyzer will be obtained from renewable sources (green electricity), which in turn ensures the hydrogen generated from this process is also green.

The agreement with Linde for supplying hydrogen to the production plant has been signed for the long term and will initially cover half of the hydrogen needed by Plansee and Ceratizit in Reutte. "Producing hydrogen from natural gas is currently responsible for 50 percent of all CO₂ emissions at our Reutte production plant. These emissions can be halved by 2025 thanks to the new hydrogen electrolyzer," says Ulrich Lausecker, Managing Director of Plansee High Performance Materials. Plansee is aiming to establish an exclusively CO₂-free hydrogen supply for the factory by 2030.

"We are proud that this is one of the few industrial electrolyzer projects in Europe and therefore a major innovation for both parties as well as the Austrian economy as a whole. Linde and Plansee are demonstrating with this project that such solutions can already be realized today through expert engagement and a professional view of the long term," says Andreas X. Müller, Head of Cluster Austria / Hungary at Linde.