The venture capital units of energy giants Chevron and Shell participated in Canadian clean hydrogen company Aurora Hydrogen’s $10 million funding round, reports Offshore Energy.
Clean hydrogen production technology
Aurora Hydrogen is developing a clean hydrogen production technology that uses microwave energy without generating any CO2 emissions or consuming water. Hydrogen production using Aurora’s technology has the potential to reduce global CO2 emissions by over 900 million tonnes per year.
The company has raised $10 million in Series A funding led by Energy Innovation Capital. Participating investors include Williams, Shell Ventures, Chevron Technology Ventures, and the George Kaiser Family Foundation. This funding adds to additional funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) that the team received earlier this year.
Hydrogen demand is expected to increase from $130 billion today to $2.5 trillion in 2025, according to the Hydrogen Council.
Need for new low-cost and low-carbon technologies
There is an urgent need to develop new low-cost and low-carbon technologies for hydrogen production. According to Aurora, its technology is highly scalable, with units that can supply a broad range of applications from distributed fueling to hydrogen injection and industrial processes.
Additionally, Aurora uses 80 per cent less electricity than electrolysis, the conventional method of producing clean hydrogen, requiring far less electrical generation capacity per kilogram of hydrogen. And, unlike electrolysis, the process does not require water as a feedstock, preserving another critical and scarce resource.
200 kg of H2 per day
The recent funding will be used to build and operate a 200 kilograms of H2 per day demonstration plant for field trials in Edmonton, Canada.
Aurora Hydrogen’s founding team is made up of Andrew Gillis, Erin Bobicki, and Murray Thomson.
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Source: Offshore Energy
