MOL Group, an integrated oil, gas, petrochemicals, and consumer retail company, has joined hands with Plug Power, a provider of turnkey green hydrogen solutions, to build green hydrogen production facility at MOL’s Danube Refinery in Szazhalombatta, Hungary.
Green hydrogen will reduce the carbon footprint of the Danube Refinery operation and enable emission-free mobility in the longer term.
Utilizing a 10-megawatt (MW) electrolysis unit from Plug Power, MOL’s €22 million facility will be able to produce approximately 1,600 tons of green hydrogen annually, removing up to 25,000 tons of carbon dioxide by displacing the natural gas-based production process.
MOL will use the green hydrogen in its Danube Refinery during fuel production of its own hydrogen system. It will be incorporated into the molecules of MOL fuels, lowering the carbon outputs from the production technology and the final product.
“This new technology allows the introduction of green hydrogen production in Hungary, which makes MOL Group one of the most important players in the sustainable energy economy in the region,” said Gabriel Szabo, Executive Vice President of Downstream at MOL Group.
“Green hydrogen addresses two issues facing humanity: climate change and energy independence,” said Andy Marsh, CEO of Plug.
The Plug equipment uses electricity from a renewable source to split water into oxygen and hydrogen gas by a process called electrolysis. By producing one ton of hydrogen, eight-to-nine tons of pure oxygen is also produced by the equipment, saving nearly 10,000 tons of natural gas consumption.
Plug’s independent green hydrogen production network is targeting 70 TPD by the end of 2022 and remains on track to have 500 TPD of green hydrogen generation network in North America by 2025 and 1,000 TPD on a global basis by 2028.
Green hydrogen production is an integral part of MOL’s updated SHAPE TOMORROW strategy, which focuses on sustainability and is completely harmonized with The European Green Deal. Within the framework of its strategy, the company will make a total investment of €1 billion into the low carbon circular economy through 2025.
MOL will reduce the carbon footprint of its operations by 30 percent by 2030 and will spend 50 percent of investment expenditures on sustainable projects. MOL aims to implement a carbon-neutral operation by 2050.