Alfa Laval to supply heat exchangers for NEOM’s green hydrogen plant

Alfa Laval has signed an agreement to deliver compact heat exchangers to the world’s largest green hydrogen plant, which is to be built in the upcoming city of Neom in Saudia Arabia.

Neom’s location and infrastructure will allow the generation of 4GW of renewable power from solar and wind where the green hydrogen production facility will use about half of it.

It will be the largest green hydrogen plant and the first installation of gigawatt size, producing 650 tonnes of hydrogen per day. This in turn will be used to produce 1.2 million tonnes of green ammonia annually.

When purified water is split into hydrogen and oxygen using renewable electricity, it is crucial to keep a stable temperature in the electrolyser to maximise efficiency. Splitting water into the two gases generates excess heat which needs to be constantly cooled off.

Alfa Laval is a leading supplier of heat exchangers to many of the main electrolyser manufacturers.

Thomas Møller, President of the Energy Division at Alfa Laval, said its hydrogen business has developed well over the past years and today it supplies heat exchangers for production, distribution and use.

“With our products and expertise, we will continue to be part of accelerating and scaling this area, which is so important in the race to net zero emission,” he said.

The company recently announced it will be technology partner in the joint project initiated by the Global Centre for Maritime Decarbonisation (GCMD), Oil and Gas Climate Initiative (OGCI) and Stena Bulk to investigate the on-board capture, storage and off-loading of carbon dioxide (CO2), providing project technological and engineering expertise to help understand the challenges and opportunities of deploying carbon capture technology on ships.

Alfa Laval, which has 17,900 employees, recorded annual sales of SEK40.9bn in 2021.