HFI has made an initial investment of £100,000 in Tower for a 20% equity stake, £50,000 of which has been paid in cash and £50,000 settled by the issue of 500,000 new ordinary shares in HFI at a price of 10p per share.

Tower Green Holdings is establishing multipurpose hydrogen hubs in south-west England to provide energy storage and hydrogen as a fuel. Under the agreement, HFI’s System, which is in development, will be implemented as Tower’s preferred green hydrogen production technology.

Daniel Maling, Non-executive Director of the company, will join the board of Tower as part of this partnership. In addition, HFI has the right to invest a further £50,000 in Tower upon it signing an agreement to collaborate with certain specific project partners for an additional 10% equity stake in Tower.

On January 4, a partnership was announced between Tower and Element 2, a UK-based developer of hydrogen refuelling stations and a retailer of hydrogen fuel to fleet operators and other consumers, whereby Tower will provide access to hydrogen for road transport in the south-west region. The partnership connects Tower’s locally produced green hydrogen with the infrastructure required to supply fuel to hydrogen-powered trucks and haulage vehicles. In 2021, Element said it wanted to deploy more than 800 hydrogen pumps in the UK by 2027.

Read more:  Element 2, Tower Group partner to bring hydrogen refuelling to South West of UK

HFI’s technology in development is a wind-based hydrogen production system combined with electrolyser technologies which aims to generate hydrogen for under $2 per kilogramme. A key element of the System is its proprietary wind turbine, which has been designed with notably distinct features which allow the turbines to be more efficient than current open rotor turbines and could increase the efficiency and ultimately lower the cost of hydrogen production for future partners such as Tower.

For the year ending July 31 2022, HFI reported a net loss of approximately £700,000 mostly relating to administrative expenses in connection with the listing on Aquis Stock Exchange Growth Market, due diligence in relation to prospective investments, and development activities related to its system. Its cash position at the time was £1.38m.

On October 5 last year, HFI announced the acquisition of a suite of international patents which are relevant to the system by the company’s joint venture subsidiary, HFI IP Holdings, and in November started testing the wind element in the form of a one-metre diameter prototype in Montana, USA.

In a closing outlook statement, it said, “During the period ahead we intend to gather data from the prototype and plan for the next phase of testing with a larger turbine and with hydrogen production capability integrated. With positive results already being achieved, I believe we are progressing to the company’s target of producing cheaper green hydrogen.”