No. This technology was developed at NASA, and it helped man get to the moon. Already 30 years ago in Spain began to work on producing hydrogen with solar energy, Spanish engineers were the second in the world to achieve it, at the INTA facilities in Huelva. Later, back in 2002, we had seven hydrogen buses in Spain, circulating through Madrid and Barcelona. In the last two decades, the main success has been the reduction of costs, and today, for what a Tesla of batteries costs, you can buy a hydrogen car with more autonomy … and that recharges in five minutes!

Hydrogen and fuel cell technologies have two key benefits. Hydrogen (H2) is the only fuel that can be burned uncontaminated, generating only water vapor (H2 + ½ O2 = H2O). And the fuel cell is a device that allows generating electricity from the chemical energy of fuel with efficiencies much higher than conventional equipment, 60% compared to 40% of a good slow diesel engine, and in a vehicle, it is still 60% compared to less than 20% of the traditional engine.

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We are talking about a key technology in the energy and transport sectors, where infrastructures are complex and expensive. Spain is currently behind in the deployment of these infrastructures, compared for example with Japan, where more than a quarter of a million houses have a fuel cell, or with Germany, with more than 60 refueling stations for hydrogen cars. We are in the first steps of commercialization. For example, Hyundai already sells hydrogen cars, but its current production is only 3,000 cars / year. They are expanding the plant to 40,000 cars a year, and they plan to reach half a million cars / year within 10 years.

Green hydrogen is produced with little pollution, from renewable energies. It can be done for example by electrolysis of water using solar or wind electricity. Business expectations are so important that, in the last 15 years, companies have filed more patents on hydrogen and fuel cells than the sum of patents on all other clean energies (solar + wind + battery car + etc. ).

Green hydrogen is essential on the path to decarbonisation, as a complement to renewable energy and electricity. We can produce hydrogen with the surpluses of renewable energies, in order to adapt supply to demand, and this hydrogen can be stored and distributed, until finally using it with zero emissions.

Taking into account that with 1 kg of hydrogen a car can travel more than 100 km, and looking at data from the IEA (International Energy Agency) according to which in many regions of the world green hydrogen can be produced at less than 2.6 US $ / kg, the use of green hydrogen may be even cheaper than current transportation.

Transport sector

Hydrogen vehicles are the only alternative to battery-electric vehicles, as local zero-emission vehicles. Battery-powered vehicles are interesting for short distances, while hydrogen vehicles serve both short and long distances, due to their great autonomy, and their recharge time comparable to a traditional vehicle. The first brands to market hydrogen cars have been Hyundai and Toyota. Many others already have good technology, such as General Motors, Honda or Daimler. Forklift trucks are already an application where hydrogen systems achieve thousands of sales per year, because they have more autonomy and less recharge time than batteries, achieving, for example, attracting investments from Amazon and WallMart. In heavy transport there are already enough experiences with buses, it is starting in trucks, and first applications in ships and trains in real use.

Energy sector

There are two key factors. The reduction in the cost of producing renewable energy, in particular photovoltaic, as well as its intermittent generation, favor the production of increasingly cheap green hydrogen. On the other hand, the need to decarbonise has more and more social and political momentum, and it will accelerate the introduction of hydrogen.

Hydrogen and fuel cells are technologies applicable from small scale (domestic use) to large industrial plants. The more fuel cells used, the less energy is wasted. And the more hydrogen, the less it becomes polluted. Currently, it is even considering using renewable hydrogen to replace hydrogen produced with natural gas in refineries and ammonia plants, in order to reduce emissions from the chemical and oil sectors, which are today the first consumers of hydrogen (about 60 million tons year).

Others

For example toys (yes, Imaginarium has sold toy hydrogen cars with the solar production system, without the need for batteries) and consumer electronics. Work is being done on the development of mobile phones with fuel cells, to achieve more autonomy and faster recharging than with battery systems. Samsung has good technology in this field, where it makes about 70 patents a year.

The report “The Fuel Cell Industry Review 2019”, by E4tech, details the evolution of fuel cell sales in recent years, highlighting the preponderance of Asia (Japan, China and South Korea) and the US, with Europe at the moment overdue (RoW is “rest of the world”).

As stated in the Prospectus, this fund invests in companies that have their own technology to offer sustainable energy products and services, in particular, in hydrogen technologies and fuel cells, as well as in companies that manufacture equipment, components, specialized engineering, integrators or related services with technological content that provide more sustainability in the production, storage and use of energy.

The companies in which it is invested are fuel cell manufacturers (such as the Canadian Ballard, or the North American Bloom), manufacturers of electrolyzers for the production of hydrogen (such as the Norwegian NEL), and specialists in niche applications (such as Plug Power, hydrogen forklift specialist).

Also included in the portfolio are companies with good technology in sustainable energy (such as China’s Jinko Solar) and companies that, despite having other more well-known fields of activity, are prominent players in this field: for example, Panasonic, which on the one hand sells batteries. to Tesla and on the other it manufactures thousands of fuel cells, or 3M, which manufactures fuel cell components.

Brochure

Exposure to equities will be at least 75%. Details on investments, legal documentation, profitability graphs and other information is available on the Renta 4 Banco website, at the following link.

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Ariema has engineers who have been working on hydrogen for 30 years. It was founded 18 years ago, and it is the first Spanish company specialized in hydrogen and fuel cells. She is very active in R&D and training. It has its own technology to manufacture electrolyzers, and carries out specialized consulting and engineering. It has experience in the installation of fuel cells (Plug Power, Ballard, Spectronik …), has designed and built “turnkey” plants for the production of green hydrogen, and participates in the megawatt-scale hydrogen production tenders that are starting to be summoned.

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We are in 2021 and the economy is very affected by COVID-19, the event of the year. How does it affect the hydrogen sector? Just in March of 2020, when the first investments in the Fund that we present here are made, we can buy shares that in January of 2020 were worth a 30% more, due to the sharp fall in the stock markets. Does COVID-19 affect hydrogen? No, COVID-19 will damage the economy of the coming years, but the hydrogen-related business is just beginning, it is going to be one of the great sectors of the century, in two sectors as critical as energy and transportation, but sales will be important as of 2025. Therefore, hydrogen is a safe haven sector with respect to COVID-19.