TotalEnergies, partners launch world's largest hydrogen fund
France's TotalEnergies has teamed up with Air Liquide and VINCI have teamed up to launch the world's largest fund designed exclusively for developing clean hydrogen infrastructure, the companies announced on October 1.
The partners aim to bring the fund's size to €1.5bn ($1.7bn), and already have €800mn committed. As anchor investors, each company has committed €100mn, while the fund will be managed by Hy24, a 50:50 joint venture between private investment house Adrian and FiveT Hydrogen a clean hydrogen, a clean hydrogen investment platform.
This joint venture will merge the fund with a similar initiative, bringing on board Plug Power as another anchor investor, with US firms Chart Industries and Baker Hughes also participating.
South Korea's Lotte Chemical also intends to take part as an anchor investor, which would make it the first Asian company to participate. Other large financial players expected to join include AXA, as another anchor investor, and industry players from North America and Europe, including Groupe ADP, EDF and Schaeffler as non-anchor investors.
"With solid industrial expertise and significant investment potential, the clean hydrogen infrastructure fund will have a unique capacity to unlock large scale projects under development and accelerate the scaling up of hydrogen markets," the companies said. "With the announced support of public policies and some use of debt financing, the fund should be able to contribute to the development of hydrogen projects with a total value of about €1.5bn.
TotalEnergies wants to establish an early position in low-carbon hydrogen and develop it at mass. One step the company will take will be decarbonising the existing hydrogen production at its European refineries by 2030, using carbon capture and storage technology.
"We are convinced that a collective effort is needed to kick-start the hydrogen sector and take it to scale," TotalEnergies CEO Patrick Pouyanne commented.
The platform should start operating before the end of the year, pending regulatory approval in France.