German wind turbine group Nordex announced plans to develop gigawatt-scale green hydrogen projects with Acciona and a dive into the electrolyser business as it formed two joint ventures in renewable H2.
Spanish infrastructure group Acciona – which is also Nordex’s largest shareholder – will invest €68m ($74m) for a 50% stake in Nordex H2, with an ambition to amass a 50GW pipeline of projects – rated by renewable power source – targeting hydrogen production at off-grid, high-wind sites.
The JV will start life with eight sites in the US, Latin America and Africa, but won’t be active and in Spain and Portugal, where Acciona has a separate alliance with Plug Power.
Nordex H2 wants to be ready to build projects with a minimum 1GW of renewables by 2027 and to be producing 500,000 tonnes of green hydrogen annually within 10 years.
Acciona’s development arm, Acciona Energia, is a major builder and operator of wind and solar projects globally, while Nordex was the eighth largest supplier of wind turbines last year, according to latest data from BloombergNEF.
"Thanks to our experience in wind project development, Nordex has been able to build an attractive portfolio of green hydrogen projects in interesting geographic regions, as well as a close network of excellent local developers and experienced partners," said José Luis Blanco, CEO of Nordex.
Nordex also announced a separate JV in electrolyser technology for green hydrogen production.
The German group and partner Sodena, an investment arm of the government of the Spanish province of Navarre, will each put €15m into Nordex Electrolyzers, which aims to “develop, manufacture and market electrolysers using proprietary technology”.
No further details are given of the technology involved, but Nordex said the JV hopes to develop a prototype for first industrial deployment over the next five years, citing expected demand for a 400GW of electrolysers by 2030.
