Enapter AG CEO and founder Sebastian-Justus Schmidt on the future of hydrogen

We want to stop global warming. Hydrogen plays an important role in this - but it has to become much cheaper. Stefan Kaufmann, the German government's innovation commissioner for green hydrogen, recently said: "Hydrogen must become the mineral water, not the champagne of the energy industry". And that's precisely our goal: to enable an affordable alternative to fossil fuels.

Why should a modular electrolyzer cost more than a motorcycle? We need vision and a lot of hard work: but it is possible!
In November 2017, we acquired an Italian company that sold the electrolyzer they had developed at a price of EUR 16,000. Today, we sell a much-improved version for EUR 9,000. In 2023, these devices will cost EUR 2,500 or less: and that's with ever-increasing performance and longer lifetimes. Even then, it won't be over - it will continue. It will change markets dramatically!

We've had several established manufacturers and experts come in to look at the details of the equipment and what is happening in the market - they all agree with our predictions.

There are many reasons. One of the biggest cost driver of other electrolyzers is, for example, endplates made of titanium. We can do without them thanks to our patented AEM electrolysis. Also, the high modularity gives us a clear lead.
Another significant advantage is the CE certification for our individual systems: Installation, maintenance, etc. become super easy as a result. Together with our software, the result is a well-rounded plug-and-play system.

We are certain that the energy markets are changing and that a great deal of electricity will be generated locally in Germany in the future. The potential for this in Germany is huge, but there is even more potential in other countries. Important to know: even today, only about 20% of our customers come from Germany. We have customers in Australia, Japan, Thailand, Holland, USA etc. Green power is charged very differently in other countries.

We have done a reverse merger for this. I always have to explain this to many people, but you know what it is. The stock exchange is a really attractive place and allows us to tell our story - and of course, it also increases our visibility.
In the future, we will continue to use all the tools that the financial markets offer us. I find the stock market interesting because anyone can participate, and not just the really big investors.

We are currently expanding our Company at the existing site in Pisa. Our R&D and production capacity has grown from 1200sqm in 2017 to about 4000sqm. Last week we acquired another building of about 1800sqm, which we will equip in early 2021. We have started scaling since the acquisition. We are currently hiring excellent employees at all locations. It is not easy, but we are very confident that we will manage all tasks.

Very unlikely. We have so much in-house R&D. It would take an insane amount of effort to catch up with us. Besides, we are constantly investing in improving our existing technology. When we inaugurate our expansion at the R&D Center in Italy in four months, we will probably have one of the largest research facilities in the field of AEM electrolysis in Europe. Nevertheless, one should learn from cases of SolarWorld and many similar cases: we must always remain vigilant and always be very fast.

Of course, but this question can be asked of any company. Let's take it one step at a time: We have worldwide patents for our AEM technology. The "we-feeling" in the Company is very strong; the employees stand behind the Company's goals and are fairly involved in the Company's participation program. The most important thing, however, is our speed on the market and in further developments. We currently have a clear lead. Two main reasons drive us: We want to contribute to the reduction of CO2 as quickly as possible and, of course, to win the global competition in the field of green electrolyzers in a sporting manner.