HD Hyundai Heavy Industries’ dockyard in Ulsan
HD Hydrogen, a unit of HD Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering Co. (HD KSOE), has acquired Convion Ltd, a Finnish hydrogen fuel cell maker, for 72 million euros ($81 million) as the shipbuilding group is striving to build its hydrogen value chain.
HD KSOE is the intermediate holding company of HD Hyundai Industries Group, the world’s largest shipbuilder. It has picked hydrogen as its next growth engine.
Convion, founded in 2012, is a leading fuel cell system developer based on solid oxide cell (SOC) technology. It has commercialized solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) systems, or electrochemical conversion devices that produce electricity directly from oxidizing a fuel.
It has also developed solid oxide electrolysis cells (SOEC), a reverse mode of SOFC that can produce hydrogen from separation of steam through electricity.
Convion has provided its hydrogen fuel cells for a smart energy project in Finland and a clean energy project in Germany.
Convion will serve as HD Hydrogen’s hub to sharpen fuel cell technology and expand in Europe.
The acquisition followed the purchase of Elcogen AS, an Estonian fuel cell company, for 45 million euros in 2023.
In January this year, Elcogen said it had collaborated with Convion to perform a field test for Convion’s industrial scale solid oxide electrolyser system, equipped with Elcogen’s cell technology. In the test, they succeeded in producing green hydrogen at superior efficiency compared to incumbent technologies.
HD Hyundai Heavy Industries Group plans to build a hydrogen value chain from production to transportation, storage and use by 2030, for which it is considering additional acquisitions of hydrogen technology companies.
HD Hydrogen takes charge of the shipbuilding group’s global hydrogen business. HD KSOE set up the hydrogen subsidiary in July of this year with a capital injection of 140 billion won.
The global hydrogen fuel cell market is projected to reach 55 trillion won by 2040 when the water electrolysis technology is expected to be commercialized, according to the International Energy Agency and the International Renewable Energy Agency.
Water electrolysis refers to the process whereby water is split into hydrogen and oxygen through the application of electrical energy.
By Sang-Hoon Sung
uphoon@hankyung.com
Yeonhee Kim edited this article
