(Antwerp / Belgium) – Power to Hydrogen Inc. (P2H2), a US developer of electrolysis systems for anion exchange membranes (AEM), has begun commercial production of green hydrogen in the "NextGen" district of the Belgian port of Antwerp-Bruges. Installation started in August.
Ribbon cut, plant inaugurated: Green hydrogen production begins in the port of Antwerp-Bruges. © Power to Hydrogen Inc.
The system consists of two units, each with a capacity of 250 kilowatts (kW). It is the first commercial deployment of AEM stacks of this size. According to the company, conventional AEM systems typically range between 2 kW and 25 kW. Initially, 70 tons of green hydrogen per year will be produced for the regional gas supplier Holthausen and other customers in the region.
The Antwerp P2H2 systems are designed to produce hydrogen when renewable energy is cheapest. Their "operating range of ten to one hundred percent" allows them to follow Belgian day-priority prices, increasing production when electricity is cheap and reducing it when it is less so. This enables the supply of locally produced hydrogen, which is more cost-effective than other hydrogen sources.
Power to Hydrogen began installing AEM large-scale electrolyzers at the Port of Antwerp-Bruges in August 2026. © Power to Hydrogen Inc.
“NextGen District was created to prove that next-generation clean technologies can work not only in the lab, but also under real-world industrial conditions,” says Johan Klaps, Chairman of the Port Authority’s Board of Directors. “Power to Hydrogen commissioning a commercial-scale electrolyzer here is exactly the kind of milestone this environment was created for, and it reinforces the port’s role as a testing ground for Europe’s transition to clean industry.”
Following a recently completed pilot project with the Spanish energy provider Repsol, lasting more than 1.250 hours, irreversible degradation of approximately two millivolts per thousand hours (mV/kHr) was measured – five to ten times better than the AEM targets published by the US Department of Energy and the EU Clean Hydrogen Partnership, suggesting a projected technical lifetime for the stack of over 50.000 hours. Hydrogen costs for the pilot project were calculated at around €3,86 per kilogram, approximately 16 percent lower than for other established electrolyzer technologies. A second 500 kW system (dual 250 kW stack) will be delivered to the Norwegian research institute SINTEF later this year.
Photo above
Power to Hydrogen has launched commercial production of green hydrogen at the Port of Antwerp-Bruges. The image shows an LNG terminal operated by the Belgian gas and storage company Fluxy Belgium SA. © Port of Antwerp-Bruges
