Austria's first public production plant for green hydrogen has opened in Gabersdorf in southern Styria, according to the company. It will supply local industry, including Sandvik subsidiary Wolfram Bergau und Hütten AG. The manufacturer of the PEM electrolyzer at the center of the plant is H-Tec Systems of Augsburg, Germany.
The "Renewable Gasfield" model project of the local energy supplier Energie Steiermark has been built on a 10,000 m² site. Investment volume: €10.5 million. The plant consists of a large-scale PV system with a collector area of 6,000 m², a PEM electrolyzer from the German manufacturer H-Tec Systems, a trailer filling plant and a methanation unit.
When fully operational, what Energie Steiermark claims will be the first "off-site" green hydrogen plant in Austria will produce up to 300 tons of green hydrogen annually. An average hydrogen car could thus cover a distance of more than 40 million km.
Hydrogen for local metallurgy
The plant's first major customer is the industrial company Wolfram Bergbau und Hütten AG, a subsidiary of the international Sandvik Group. The plant in St. Martin produces tungsten powder. It will take in around 70 t of the green hydrogen annually for its processes.
Mag. Gernot Wörther, deputy managing director of the Climate and Energy Fund emphasized on the occasion of the opening:
"Austria wants to be climate neutral by 2040. This means that we will have to transform our energy system very quickly - and renewable gases, produced and used in the region, will play an important role in this new energy world. Renewable Gasfield, funded by the Climate and Energy Fund to the tune of €2.9 million, is a pioneering project of which we are very proud.
It owes its success, which we are celebrating here today with the opening, to the dedicated team around Energie Steiermark. The task now is to bring the results into widespread use very quickly. It is clear that innovative climate protection technologies need to make an impact very quickly in Austria and internationally."
