Plug provides 10 MW unit to produce green hydrogen

MOL Group and Plug Power plan to build one of Europe’s largest-capacity green hydrogen production facilities at MOL’s Danube refinery in Százhalombatta, Hungary. Green hydrogen from the facility will reduce the carbon footprint of the Danube refinery operation and enable emission-free mobility in the longer term, both companies have announced.

Utilizing a 10-megawatt (MW) electrolysis unit from Plug Power, MOL’s €22 million facility will be able to produce approximately 1600 tons of clean, carbon-neutral, green hydrogen annually, removing up to 25,000 tons of carbon dioxide by displacing the currently used natural gas-based production process, MOL announced.

The process supports MOL’s carbon neutrality goals and will contribute to energy independence for the region, the company announced.

Once operational in 2023, MOL will use the green hydrogen in its Danube refinery during fuel production of its own hydrogen system. It will be incorporated into the molecules of MOL fuels, lowering the carbon outputs from the production technology and the final product.

“We are convinced that hydrogen is not only one of the most important energy carriers of the already ongoing energy transition, but it will be an essential factor in the new, carbon-neutral energy system as well. This new technology allows the introduction of green hydrogen production in Hungary, Százhalombatta, which makes MOL Group one of the most important players in the sustainable energy economy in the region,” said Gabriel Szabó, executive vice president of downstream at MOL Group.

“Green hydrogen addresses two critical issues facing humanity: climate change and energy independence,” said Andy Marsh, CEO of Plug. “And our opportunities seem limitless to support the trend to pull green hydrogen into more traditional industrial hydrogen markets throughout the world. We are pleased to provide our state-of-the-art electrolyzer technology to MOL Group’s Danube Refinery and enable MOL Group to take a big step forward in addressing these issues for the region.”

The production of green hydrogen does not generate any greenhouse gas emissions. The Plug equipment uses electricity from a renewable source to split water into oxygen and hydrogen gas by a process called electrolysis. This process does not produce any by-products that harm the environment, the company said.

By producing one ton of hydrogen, eight-to-nine tons of pure oxygen is also produced by the equipment, saving nearly 10,000 tons of natural gas consumption in the process.

Plug’s electrolyzers are modular, scalable hydrogen generators optimized for clean hydrogen production.

Plug’s independent green hydrogen production network is targeting 70 TPD by the end of 2022 and remains on track to have 500 TPD of green hydrogen generation network in North America by 2025 and 1,000 TPD on a global basis by 2028, the company said.

As part of its strategy to reduce GHG emissions, MOL will invest €1 billion into the low carbon circular economy through 2025. MOL will reduce the carbon footprint of its operations by 30 percent by 2030 and will spend 50 percent of investment expenditures on sustainable projects. MOL aims to implement a carbon-neutral operation by 2050.

MOL Group is an international, integrated oil, gas, petrochemicals, and consumer retail company based in Budapest, Hungary. MOL Group operates three refineries and two petrochemical plants under integrated supply chain management in Hungary, Slovakia, and Croatia, and owns a network of almost 2000 service stations across 10 countries in Central & South-Eastern Europe.

Plug is building an end-to-end green hydrogen ecosystem, from production, storage and delivery to energy generation, to help industry decarbonize the economy.