21 February 2014
ITM Power plc
("ITM Power" or "the Company")
Formal acceptance testing of the Thüga Group Plant
ITM Power (AIM: ITM), the energy storage and clean fuel company, is pleased to announce that the plant supplied to the Thüga Group has now completed its formal acceptance testing.
As previously reported on, 30th September 2013, the Company announced that its Power-to-Gas (P2G) plant had been delivered to the site in Frankfurt am Main on time. In addition, on 4th December 2013 ITM Power reported that the unit had been successfully integrated with the gas mixing equipment and that for the first time in Germany, and ahead of schedule, hydrogen had been injected into the German gas distribution grid. The Company can now report the achievement of the following items:
1. CE conformance for the integrated electrolyser system
2. Functional acceptance testing completed
3. The granting of the Permit to Operate
Achievement of CE Conformance required generation of detailed documentation in addition to a series of tests witnessed by an appropriate Notified Body. Functional testing involved agreement and execution of a suite of tests which together challenged the electrolyser against each aspect of its specification. These tests were undertaken by ITM Power in collaboration with Thüga Group. The Permit to Operate was granted in two stages by TÜV Hessen following three detailed on-site audits of the electrolyser and gas mixing plant in the Schielestraße, Frankfurt.
Phil Doran, MD of ITM Power GMBH commented: "ITM Power is delighted to have collaborated so effectively with the project partners and to have achieved all the important project milestones within and often ahead of time. We are looking forward to developing further our productive partnerships in Germany."
For further information please visit www.itm-power.com or contact:
ITM Power plc Graham Cooley, CEO |
0114 244 5111 |
Zeus Capital Tim Metcalfe (Nominated Adviser) John Goold (Institutional Sales) |
020 7533 7727 |
Tavistock Communications Simon Hudson / James Collins |
020 7920 3150 |
About the Thüga Group:
450 cities and boroughs with responsibility for the living environment of around eight million people have brought together their 100 municipal energy and water utility companies to form the Thüga Group. The aim is to create added value for each environmental area and to secure local values long-term through their collaboration. In total the Thüga Group employs 18,100 staff. They provide almost 3.6 million customers with electricity, around 2.1 million customers with natural gas and 0.9 million customers with drinking water. The turnover of the Thüga network in 2012 was 22.3 billion euros. The Thüga Group is Germany's largest municipal network of local and regional energy suppliers. The roles are clearly allocated within the Thüga Group: the 100 partners take care of active marketing efforts with their local and regional brands. Thüga - financial partner of the cities and boroughs and, in this capacity, minority shareholder in the partner companies - is the core element of the group and is tasked with business development: attracting new partners, value retention and development of the company, coordination and facilitation of projects as well as control of collaboration in the group.
13 companies of the Thüga Group have combined their collective know-how and capital in a project platform to invest jointly in the development of power-to-gas storage technology. The focus is on testing the feasibility of power-to-gas technology. The companies are confident that in the long-term, this offers the greatest potential for storing excess renewable energy. To this end, the group is collectively developing, building and operating its own demonstration plant in Frankfurt am Main initially over a three-year period (2014 - 2016). The plant converts electricity into hydrogen and then stores this in the gas distribution network. Overall, the partners will invest more than €1.5m. The project is financially supported by the Hessian Ministry for the Environment, Energy, Agriculture and Consumer Protection. Following the first phase of this project, the partners will consider a second project, in which hydrogen will be generated and combined with carbon dioxide to form synthetic methane to be directly injected and stored in the natural gas grid.
About ITM Power plc
ITM Power plc was admitted to the AIM market of the London Stock Exchange in 2004. The Company has now made the transition from a research and development company to a product manufacturer and technology provider. The Company has both a strong base of intellectual property and engineering expertise for providing complete hydrogen solutions.
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