In Herning, Denmark, a factory decades in the making has quietly opened its doors — and the ambition behind it is anything but quiet. Topsoe’s new manufacturing facility is Europe’s first industrial-scale plant built to produce Solid Oxide Electrolyzer Cell stacks, a technology designed to convert renewable electricity into green hydrogen and e-fuels.
The target: some of the hardest sectors to clean up, including steel, aviation, and shipping — industries that together account for roughly 30% of global greenhouse gas emissions. What makes this moment different from previous milestones is still coming into focus.
From laboratory to factory floor
The Herning facility didn’t emerge overnight. Topsoe’s research into Solid Oxide Electrolyzer Cell technology stretches back to the late 1980s, making the factory’s opening the culmination of roughly four decades of scientific development. CEO Roeland Baan frames it in explicitly historical terms, placing it alongside the company’s earlier work on ammonia production for fertilizers and the pollution controls that helped curb acid rain.
“Herning is the culmination of work that began in the late 1980s,” Baan said. “It is our latest and perhaps most important contribution to solving global problems.”
The plant holds a specific distinction: it’s the first industrial-scale SOEC manufacturing facility in the European Union. First electrolyzer stacks are scheduled to ship in the first half of 2025, with the factory expected to reach full production capacity by 2026. For a technology that spent decades in research and development, arriving on the factory floor marks a meaningful threshold.
Why SOEC stands apart from other electrolyzer technologies
Not all electrolyzers are created equal. The core claim behind SOEC technology is efficiency — specifically, that it converts renewable electricity into green hydrogen using 20–30% less energy than competing approaches such as PEM (proton exchange membrane) and alkaline electrolyzers, provided it’s paired with a source of waste heat.
That efficiency gap matters more than it might initially appear. Kim Hedegaard, Topsoe’s CEO of Power-to-X, put it plainly: “Green electrons must be treated as precious commodities.” Renewable electricity remains a constrained resource during the current phase of the energy transition. Every percentage point of efficiency translates into more hydrogen produced per unit of power consumed — a compounding advantage as demand scales.
The downstream effect is economic as well as environmental. Greater efficiency means lower production costs, which could accelerate the scaling of green hydrogen supply — one of the central bottlenecks in decarbonizing energy-intensive industries.
Beyond hydrogen: e-fuels for hard-to-decarbonize industries
Green hydrogen is only the beginning of what the Herning facility is designed to enable. SOEC technology can also produce Power-to-X derivatives — e-ammonia, e-methanol, and other synthetic fuels — all potential low-carbon substitutes for fossil-based inputs in industries that have few other viable options.
Steel production, aviation, and shipping collectively account for roughly 30% of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to Topsoe’s figures. These sectors are frequently described as “hard to abate” because electrification alone can’t easily replace the high-heat processes or energy-dense fuels they depend on. Green e-fuels represent one of the more credible pathways available.
The scale of potential impact is substantial. Topsoe projects that Herning’s 500 MW annual production capacity could avoid 7.6 million tonnes of CO2 emissions over its first ten years — a figure the company compares to eliminating more than 4,000 return flights between Paris and New York.
Europe’s backing and the road to 40 GW by 2030
The European Union has placed a concrete bet on this technology. Topsoe received a €94 million grant from the EU Innovation Fund — a signal of institutional confidence that extends beyond a single company to the broader SOEC category. Baan acknowledged the significance directly, describing the award as recognition of Topsoe’s “leadership in this field.”
That grant sits within a larger policy framework. The European Commission has set a target of deploying 40 gigawatts of European-produced electrolyzers by 2030, an ambitious goal that’ll require multiple facilities operating at industrial scale across the continent.
Herning is positioned as a model for what that buildout could look like. Topsoe describes the factory not as a destination but as a starting point, with the expectation that SOEC production will expand as demand grows and the technology proves itself in real-world conditions.
Whether the timeline holds — first shipments in 2025, full capacity by 2026 — will depend on how quickly customers in steel, aviation, and shipping move to commit. The factory is ready. How fast the industries it was built to serve will follow is the larger question.
