Lhyfe acquires 49% stake in Finnish Flexens

French hydrogen producer Lhyfe has acquired a 49% stake in the Finnish company Flexens, a developer of renewable and green hydrogen and Power-to-X projects.

Courtesy of Lhyfe

Lhyfe said the move will accelerate the commercial deployment and Finland-based projects of both entities.

According to Lhyfe, the companies first started working together on joint projects in 2020, and now as officially linked, they will combine their expertise, market knowledge, and commercial pipelines to accelerate current projects and identify new opportunities in Northern Europe, in particular large offshore projects, in order to achieve the decarbonisation objectives they have set themselves.

Lhyfe said that Flexens has developed significant capabilities in energy system modelling and project development since 2018.

The company pointed out that Flexens has a strong commercial pipeline with a total foreseen capacity exceeding 1.5 GW in Finland and abroad, including:

  • Kokkola: a well-advanced 300 MW project backed by Letters of Intent (LoI) and expected to be commissioned by 2027.
  • Åland: a Smart Energy Åland demonstration project intended to showcase a society based on 100% renewable electricity, using hydrogen and Power-to-X applications.
  • Lempäälä: a 2.5 MW green hydrogen production unit in Lempäälä, expected to be operational in 2025, which will be connected to Finland’s first hydrogen refuelling station.

Berndt Schalin, CEO of Flexens, said: “Lhyfe is one of the pioneers in the market and is one of the companies capable of fast project execution. We are very much looking forward to intensifying our collaboration to use our knowledge of the Nordic markets to make new renewable and green hydrogen projects happen.”

Taia Kronborg, Chief Business Officer at Lhyfe, commented: “Flexens is an expert and committed company that we have been fortunate to work with over the past months. Our common values and their knowledge of the local market convinced us to come together in order to achieve our respective goals more quickly.”

In 2021, Lhyfe inaugurated the world’s first industrial site for the production of green hydrogen in direct connection with a wind farm and, in 2022, it inaugurated the world’s first offshore green hydrogen production demonstrator.

The company said it aims to have more than 3 GW of installed capacity by 2030 and will have three new industrial sites in operation by the end of 2023. It has already announced several projects throughout Europe, including in Nordic countries, with GreenLab and GreenHyScale in Denmark, Storgrundet, Trelleborgs Energi, and Harjedalen in Sweden, and Horisont Energi in Norway.

In recent months, Lhyfe entered multiple partnerships across Europe to achieve its hydrogen and decarbonisation objectives., the latest being the one with the UK-headquartered multinational energy company Centrica.

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In February 2023, Lhyfe acquired the construction permit for its second green and renewable hydrogen production site in the Morbihan region of Brittany, France.

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