Yara Growth Ventures has made an investment in a Danish start-up currently developing solid oxide electrolysis (SOEC) technology, as the fertiliser producer looks to decarbonise its operations with hydrogen.

Dynelectro has been working to increase the lifetime of an SOEC system from two to 10 years, while ensuring the integration of the electrolysis pathway with intermittent renewable electricity.

As a high-temperature process, SOEC can harvest excess heat from industrial processes to dramatically increase electrolysis efficiency compared to lower temperature solutions.

However, the high operating temperatures lead to longer start-up times and less flexibility in responding to the variable output of renewable energy sources. Nonetheless, Yara sees potential in the Danish firm’s technology.

“While SOEC has the best potential for low-cost, it suffers a niche existence due to system lifetime issues,” said Björn Heinz, Investment Director at Yara Growth Ventures. “We believe Dynelectro will overcome these issues and pave the way to make low-cost renewable hydrogen a reality.”

Sune Lilbæk, CEO of Dynelectro, said the addition of Yara was a significant milestone, becoming the firm’s first industrial investor.

Lilbæk, said it demonstrated “market readiness and pull for innovation within clean sustainable technologies.”

The undisclosed investment comes after Dynelecto’s seed investment round last May (2023), which saw the company raise €4.5m with funds from the Danish state fund EIFO and more.

Dynelectro is already undertaking a project to develop a stack model to validate AC:DC technology to eliminate temperature variations to facilitate the dynamic operation of its systems.

In September 2022, Yara joined Norwegian PEM electrolyser firm Hystar’s 1MW HyPilot project.

Read more: Yara Clean Ammonia joins Hystar’s HyPilot project in Norway