Amazon has made its first investment in the European green hydrogen sector by backing German electrolyser manufacturer Sunfire with capital from its $2bn Climate Pledge Fund.

Sunfire, which is focused on pressurised alkaline electrolyser (AE) and solid-oxide electrolyser technology, says it will use the funds from Amazon to scale up its production.

“We are proud to welcome Amazon as our investor and look forward to working with a company that has such ambitious climate targets,” says Sunfire CEO Nils Aldag. “With Amazon’s help, we want to further scale up our production capacity.”

The size of Amazon’s investment was not disclosed.

“With Amazon’s help, we want to further scale up our production capacity” Aldag, Sunfire

Dresden-based Sunfire raised €86mn ($86.3mn) of new investment in a funding round earlier this year. One of the investors, Danish fund manager Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, also placed an order with Sunfire for up to 640MW of pressurised AE capacity.

The investment in Sunfire follows a commitment by Amazon last month to US electrolyser startup Electric Hydrogen. Amazon’s Climate Pledge Fund was among the strategic investors in a $198mn financing round to support the commercialisation of Boston-based Electric Hydrogen’s products.

Other investors include Norwegian energy company Equinor, miner Rio Tinto and engineering company Mitsubishi Heavy Industries.

“We are proud to be investing in visionary companies like Electric Hydrogen and Sunfire that are developing vital technology for the deployment of green hydrogen to help decarbonise hard-to-abate sectors,” says Kara Hurst, Amazon’s vice-president of worldwide sustainability.

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Author: Stuart Penson