ITM Power Ships First Post-Subsidy Electrolyser With RWE Lingen Build Still to Come
ITM Power has shipped its first electrolyser since a £86.5m state investment, with two 100 MW commercial units still due for RWE's 300 MW Lingen site by 2027.
ITM Power shipped its first electrolyser since receiving an £86.5m government package from GB Energy and the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, with the unit now producing hydrogen at the GET H2 Nukleus project, the company reported on Tuesday (2026-08-04).5
The delivery follows a larger commitment in Germany. ITM Power and Linde Engineering are contracted to deliver two 100 MW electrolysers to RWE's site in Lingen, in northwestern Germany, as part of a development targeting 300 MW of total electrolyser capacity at the site by 2027. RWE, BP and OGE are named as key partners.5
GB Energy took a £40m equity stake in ITM Power in April 2026, backing the company's plans to scale toward a 1 GW electrolyser manufacturing line. The GET H2 Nukleus unit is the first machine shipped since that investment was finalised. The transition from a single pilot-scale electrolyser to two commercial 100 MW units at a German industrial site, within roughly two years, is a substantially harder undertaking in both manufacturing volume and on-site engineering complexity. 100 MW electrolysers are among the largest being commissioned globally, and the Lingen schedule leaves limited room for slippage.5
Germany's energy policy environment has been moving quickly. On Thursday (2026-07-09), the German parliament approved by voice vote a law clearing the path for tenders of 11 GW of gas-fired, hydrogen-ready power plants under a new capacity market framework, Montel reported. The legislation moved to the upper house after the vote.4
Energy and economy minister Katherina Reiche, speaking on Tuesday (2026-06-23), broadened that capacity market design to include batteries and renewables alongside gas; Montel reported the move as widening a plan that had previously centred on gas alone. For operators building large-scale electrolysers, the broader framework is relevant: a capacity market that values dispatchable low-carbon assets creates a more explicit policy context for green hydrogen development than one designed around firm gas capacity alone, though the link to specific project offtake remains indirect.3
Clean energy investment in Germany faces a separate set of concerns at the grid level. Industry figures told Montel in May (2026-05-21) that the economy ministry's network package shifts investment risk very heavily onto developers, with the potential for an abrupt slowdown in clean energy spending if grid bottlenecks are not resolved alongside generation buildout. Electrolysers at the scale planned for Lingen are power-intensive operations, commercially sensitive to grid access and to the price of renewable electricity at the connection point.1
A German economy ministry official told Montel on Tuesday (2026-05-19) that a raft of energy legislation was expected to come to a parliamentary vote over the following days and weeks, while signalling no sharp reversals in policy direction. The hydrogen-ready capacity market law that cleared parliament on Thursday (2026-07-09) formed part of that sequence. Still ahead is the upper house vote.2,4
The practical constraint on the Lingen programme is manufacturing scale. ITM Power has shipped one electrolyser since the GB Energy equity injection, with two 100 MW machines for RWE still to come. The company is simultaneously ramping its production infrastructure toward a 1 GW manufacturing line — a parallel track requiring capital, supply chain stability and engineering capacity on two fronts at once. How quickly ITM Power can move from Tuesday's (2026-08-04) pilot delivery to commercial-scale output at Lingen is the number to watch heading into 2027.5