Two companies are teaming up to use food waste to power vehicles.
The project is spearheaded by Albuquerque-based hydrogen energy company BayoTech and IBMS Group, a British holding company. Together, the two firms will seek to produce 1,000 kilograms of renewable hydrogen per day to fuel zero-emission vehicles in the United Kingdom. To do this, the companies will use biomethane produced from waste at an IMBS facility before being converted to hydrogen using BayoTech's on-site hydrogen generator system.
The food-based system is "due to be online" during the first half of next year. The companies announced the partnership in conjunction with the launch of the "Seize the Moment" campaign, a new economic development initiative from CBI, a London-based business organization.
BayoTech creates its hydrogen fuel by putting methane through modular reactors and storing it.
“This tackles a bottleneck of renewable hydrogen availability in the UK and gives fleet operators immediate access to cost effective, carbon neutral or even carbon negative hydrogen," said BayoTech Vice President Steve Jones in a statement. The company contends that adopting a model of regional hydrogen production and distribution reduces unnecessary "costs, storage, and transportation," leading to a lower overall carbon footprint compared to other production models.
"We look forward to launching the initial project next year and then rolling it out across multiple UK locations in the next few years to create a national network of carbon negative hydrogen production facilities," said Steve Sharratt, CEO of IBMS Group. In addition to producing "green hydrogen" in the next year for the transportation sector, IBMS also operates a hydroponics business called Fresh Green Leaves. It also plans to launch a division focused on insect protein.
The announcement, made on May 24, comes on the heels of a partnership made with Vancouver-based Loop Energy Inc., where the companies will develop marketing concepts that can pair Loop’s fuel cells and BayoTech’s hydrogen fuel generation system. Loop Energy designs commercial hydrogen fuel-cell systems for electric vehicles, including buses and trucks.
BayoTech has already scored significant funding commitments. In January 2021, the company announced that it will receive up to $157 million from Newlight Partners, a New York equity firm, with participation from existing New Mexico investors Sun Mountain Capital and Cottonwood Technology Fund. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Prior to that, the company closed a $12.5 million round of financing to expand its infrastructure and move closer to commercialization.
