The 23,000 square metre facility in Herning, which has been under development since 2022, was originally due to come online in 2024 after securing a €94m ($108.7m) grant from the EU Innovation Fund.

Equipped with automation production lines, the facility could eventually have a nameplate capacity of 5GW once fully loaded.

The Danish technology firm has already secured SOEC orders from First Ammonia for its green ammonia project in Texas and Forestal for its Spanish e-methanol plant.

Topsoe claims SOEC technology can be up to 20% more efficient than alkaline or PEM electrolysers, and go 30% more with steam integration by reducing electrical input.

“With this facility, we are moving SOEC technology and Power-to-X from ambition to reality – at a speed and scale that’s urgently needed,” said Roeland Baan, Topsoe CEO.

This marks one of the first mass-SOEC production exercises globally. Despite the technology’s potential to offer high efficiency and lower green hydrogen production costs, it remains unproven at scale.

It also comes at a crunch point for European electrolyser manufacturing. According to Hydrogen Europe, the continent hosts around 12GW of capacity per year. But projections expect less than 5GW of annual deployments through to 2030.

This is due to delays in project final investment decisions driven by higher-than-expected production costs and low demand for green hydrogen.

Europe’s manufacturers are also contending with increasing competition from Chinese OEMs that can produce systems at a fraction of the cost – a challenge that has prompted Topsoe and others to call for stronger trade protections and policy support.