McPhy to Continue ENERTRAG's HyTec Electrolyzer Activities

DAUERTHAL, Germany and LA MOTTE FANJAS, France, September 27, 2013 /PRNewswire/ --

Both partners to work jointly on development of economic wind-hydrogen concepts in future

ENERTRAG AG, project developer and supplier of sustainable energy from renewable sources and McPhy Energy, a leading developer and manufacturer of solid state hydrogen storage and hydrogen generators, today announced that as of October 1^st , 2013, McPhy Energy Deutschland GmbH will take over the development and manufacturing of electrolyzers as well as the employees of ENERTRAG HyTec GmbH. McPhy and ENERTRAG will work jointly to develop economic wind-hydrogen solutions.

The large-scale electrolyzers from HyTec, which will be known as McPhy Deutschland, range in power from 500 kW to multiple MW. They are successfully used for example in the much-heralded Prenzlau Hybrid Power Plant built by ENERTRAG, showing that a demand-driven energy supply from renewable resources is possible. The interest for this electrolysis technology, however, is global. McPhy intends to expand the activities in the state of Brandenburg, Germany.

The HyTec large-scale electrolysis systems address a key challenge of renewable electric energy, production of which at times can be in excess of immediate demand or for one reason or another cannot be integrated into the electricity grid. The solution is to convert the electrical energy through electrolysis of water into hydrogen, a chemical energy carrier (in a process referred to as power-to-gas) and oxygen. Hydrogen, now generated carbon-free, can either be: injected into the natural gas-grid; used as valuable raw material in industry; or drive future zero-emission mobility in fuel cell technology.

McPhy Energy's core expertise is its innovative technology for storing hydrogen in a solid state, based on magnesium hydrides. In January 2013, McPhy also acquired another electrolysis specialist, PIEL of Italy, which specializes in smaller electrolyzer systems ranging up to 500 kW.

"Utilizing all our sales and technology synergies we will be able to grow and strengthen the HyTec activities and accelerate continued innovation and deployment of the company's alcaline electrolyzer technology. This will enable McPhy to supply not only the traditional global industrial markets, but also the future Energy and Mobility markets with the necessary key technologies", said Roland Käppner, Board Member McPhy Energy Group and CEO of McPhy Germany.

Jörg Müller, President & CEO of ENERTRAG: "ENERTRAG has demonstrated, that large scale electrolyzer plants for energy storage applications can be built in short time and at reasonable cost levels. Electrolyzers of that size will be a central building block for our energy system transition. The core business of ENERTRAG will remain the development of renewable power projects and the generation of renewable  energy - not industrial manufacturing"

"In order to transform the Power-to-Gas approach for integration of renewable energies into an economic business model, both regulatory frameworks as well as strong alliances between industrial equipment manufacturers and power utilities need to be forged. With McPhy, we are confident to have found the right partner to foster the development of our electrolyzer technology and turn it from a pre-production stage into fully industrialized products for the global market", says Werner Diwald, Board Member of ENERTRAG.

Pascal Mauberger, President & CEO of McPhy Energy Group: "The takeover of ENERTRAG HyTec activities is a logical milestone for further developping our portfolio of technologies for building a future safe and CO₂-free hydrogen infrastructure. We are convinced, that with ENERTRAG, we have won a strong partner with which to drive the energy transition not only in Germany, but across Europe."

ENERTRAG AG

ENERTRAG generates electrical energy from wind and other renewable resources. The group, founded 1998 and now employing more than 440 people at locations in 5 countries, is developping, planning, building and operating plants, develops both technologies and financial products. ENERTRAG operates a comprehensive service network for wind power plants in Germany and France. Until today, more than 520 wind energy plants have been commissioned. For more Information: http://www.enertrag.com.

McPhy Energy

McPhy Energy Deutschland GmbH is a 100% subsidy of McPhy Energy S.A with its headquarter in La Motte Fanjas, France. McPhy is focussing on the development and manufacturing of innovative and safe hydrogen technologies. Besides solid-state storage of hydrogen based on metal hydrides, McPhy is consistently expanding their activities on on-site generation of hydrogen by means of water electrolysis. With the acquisition of PIEL (Italy) in early 2013, McPhy now has a global  installed base of over 3.000 systems. For three consecutive years, McPhy has been listed in the "Global CleanTech 100" group of companies and is one of the "Top 5 CleanTech France" enterprises. The Group has manufacturing sites in France and Italy. For more Information: http://www.mcphy.com

Your contacts:

McPhy Energy Deutschland GmbH
Roland Kaeppner
Oberer Mainkai 1
97070 Würzburg
Tel.: +49-931-35987-244
E-Mail: roland.kaeppner@mcphy.com
http://www.mcphy.com

ENERTRAG AG
Robert Döring
Gut Dauerthal
17291 Dauerthal
Mobil: +49-172-3920-762
E-Mail: robert.doering@enertrag.com
http://www.enertrag.com

SOURCE Mc Phy - La Motte-Fanjas