Voestalpine Metallurgical company and VERBUND, Austria's largest electricity supply company, have announced a large-scale expansion of the H2FUTURE hydrogen research project in Linz (Austria), which is considered one of the longest-running in the world.
The project, which has been operating since 2019 based on PEM electrolysis technology, will receive a new infrastructure for purification, compression, storage and transportation of "green" hydrogen. The total investment in the new stage of the study is €16.4 million.
As part of the H2FUTURE Follow-up initiative, a purification plant, a compression system and five hydrogen tanks with a total capacity of one ton will be installed at the Voestalpine site. The preparations for the expansion lasted two years, and the commissioning works will start in January 2026. The first research results are expected before the end of 2026, and the project is scheduled to be completed in December 2029.
Voestalpine will use green hydrogen in a number of internal research programs, in particular as part of greentec steel's strategy, which provides for a phased transition to green steel production. Electric arc furnaces, which will replace two blast furnace units, are expected to be operational at enterprises in Linz and Donavitz as early as 2027. The company plans to achieve zero CO2 emissions by 2050.
VERBUND is responsible for the hydrogen infrastructure in the project and ensuring a stable supply of hydrogen even with fluctuations in production. In 2019, H2FUTURE became the largest hydrogen pilot project in the world, and now, thanks to a new stage of research, it should lay the foundation for the industrial use of "green" hydrogen in Europe.
