Since 1927: NEL ASA: The history of the Norwegian hydrogen company | message

?? NEL ASA – a pioneer in electrolyser installation
?? In 2014 the company went public in Oslo
?? NEL ASA is expanding its product portfolio

The world’s largest hydrogen electrolyser company in 13 years

NEL ASA is a Norwegian company that operates in the energy industry. It has specialized in hydrogen technologies, which should enable the generation, storage and distribution of hydrogen.

The company was founded in 1927 in Notodden, Norway. NEL ASA’s mission was and is to this day: “We deliver optimal solutions for the production, storage and distribution of hydrogen from renewable energies.” Right from the start, the company has focused on the installation of electrolysers, a device in which water is split into hydrogen and oxygen with the help of electricity.
Just 13 years later, NEL ASA had its first major success with its hydrogen electrolyser installation in Rjukan, Norway: NEL’s hydrogen installation in Rjukan was the largest in the world at the time.

Commissioning of further hydrogen plants

This was followed by the commissioning of the second large hydrogen electrolyser plant in the Norwegian Glomfjord in 1953. This was intended to supply the ammonia production in Norway with hydrogen.

The year 1959 represented another milestone for NEL. The company restructured its electrolyser unit from scratch, thus creating the basis for the atmospheric electrolyser, which is the basis of NEL’s business model today.

NEL dares to take the step and offers its products on the market

In 1974 NEL began making its electrolyser technologies available to the broad market and thus to other companies for the first time. In addition to other companies, NEL also reached other industries and increasingly established itself internationally. In 1988 NEL further consolidated its position in the international market. The hydrogen company becomes the world’s first supplier and supplier of asbestos-free alkali electrolysers.

However, NEL did not rest on its success and continued to focus on the further development of its products. So it happened that in 2001 NEL celebrated the launch of its first pressure electrolyser and brought it to market.

NEL expands and acquires additional companies

Just two years later, NEL reached another milestone in Reykjavik, Iceland. There the company opened the first publicly accessible hydrogen filling station – and was thus a pioneer worldwide.

NEL ASA’s pioneering spirit was also evident on the stock exchange, with NEL going public on the Oslo Stock Exchange in 2014. What is special about it: The company was listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange as the first company to specialize 100 percent in hydrogen.

NEL ASA now began to expand its product portfolio and expand its market position. For this purpose, in 2015 NEL acquired the company H2 Logic, which was a leader in the field of hydrogen filling stations. In connection with this, NEL ASA started just one year later with the construction of the world’s largest production facility for hydrogen filling stations, which has a capacity of 300 hydrogen filling stations per year.

In 2017 NEL ASA took over another company, Proton OnSite, which had specialized in PEM electrolysis technologies. With the purchase of Proton OnSite, NEL ASA became the largest electrolysis company in the world.

However, this does not remain NEL’s only major event. The same year the electrolysis company found a new partner in Nikola. Nikola plans to build a hydrogen filling station infrastructure for its hydrogen fuel cell powered vehicles.

NEL’s future prospects: Green Hydrogen Catapult Initiative

Only recently, various global players from the renewable energy sector joined forces to form the “Green Hydrogen Catapult Initiative”. These are the companies ACWA Power, CWP Renewables, Envision, Iberdrola, Ørsted, Snam and Yara. While NEL is not directly part of this initiative, it can provide the company with new opportunities. NEL works as an electrolysis specialist with Iberdrola and Yara. As the shareholder reports, this could be NEL’s chance to get hold of new, large projects through the initiative.

Finanzen.net editorial team

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