GRZ Technologies’ business is hydrogen. The company provides integrated systems and services that make use of the advantages of this energy carrier. Its product portfolio has arisen from several years of research in the field, with its most mature business being in hydrogen storage. “Our modules store hydrogen at low pressure in solid form,” explains Noris Gallandat, the company’s co-founder. “They therefore provide a high-density solution that is extremely safe.” And it’s effective too, capable of storing up to 4.5 MWh in a standard 20-foot container – a storage density eight to ten times higher than a lithium battery.
This technology has applications in stationary storage such as the facilities typically used on large solar and wind farms. By providing a way of storing surplus electricity in the form of hydrogen, it offers a complementary solution for sites that produce renewable energy, which by nature is irregular. In this field, GRZ Technologies works with the German company MOVE ON Energy at Europe’s largest solar power station near Leipzig. The company’s technology is also used for peak electricity supply by network operators (such as ewb in Switzerland) and as a peak shaving solution in industries with irregular energy consumption needs (such as Fisher Edelstaal, a Dutch company that manufactures stainless-steel parts).
The company has also developed a thermal hydrogen compressor (HyCo) for refuelling hydrogen-powered cars at service stations, in collaboration with Hyundai and Messer. The third line of GRZ Technologies’ products is in power-to-gas, a technology that uses surplus renewable electricity to produce synthetic methane through a process called methanation. Working with Gaznat, the company that supplies high-pressure natural gas in western Switzerland, it began operating its first reactor, near the Energypolis campus in Sion, in 2017. A 225-kW industrial version went into service at Gaznat’s Innovation Lab in 2023 with a view to large-scale commercial use; it reduces carbon emissions by around 300 tonnes per year. This type of installation is aimed at large renewable energy producers, big carbon emitters and biogas production sites. It is set to replace fossil methane with methane that is chemically identical but 100% renewable and carbon-neutral, and which can also use the same energy infrastructure.
GRZ Technologies SA
