About Pearl HyGear

HyGear is a market leader in the design and implementation of small-scale gas facilities where gas production takes place on the customer's site. In doing so, the company makes a significant contribution to the energy transition by helping other companies and organisations reduce their energy consumption and switch to renewable energy sources, such as hydrogen. 

Dutch merchants

Hydrogen is increasingly used and is created by heating natural gas and water. There is only one major drawback, transporting hydrogen is very expensive. Ellart de Wit, Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of HyGear: "As good Dutch merchants, we started thinking about this. Keeping in mind the knowledge that hydrogen cars are on the way, we came up with the idea of producing hydrogen locally. When our technology was ready, it turned out that bringing hydrogen cars to market was going to take some time. So we started tapping industrial markets." 

HyGear encountered conservative companies with the attitude 'what works that works' that were hardly open to innovation. Eventually, a glass company partnered with them. "After that, things went fast. They were enthusiastic and passed it on to fellow companies." HyGear can now count many companies in the glass, metal and food industry among its customers. 

Band built up

Security of supply of fuel is the most important thing for these companies, with the factories running 24/7. "They usually have three months of fuel in stock. Now that they produce it themselves, they use the tankers as back-up." This saves them costs and energy. What makes it even more advantageous for customers is that they can rent HyGear's system. 

"They pay an amount per month and per kilo of hydrogen. This is not only beneficial for them, also for us. The machines we make are quite identical. If we get a yield advantage now, we can apply that in all systems." Meanwhile, HyGear has gone a step further and now also offers a recycling system. This reuses the gas left over at the end of the production process. HyGear buys the molecules and sells them back after purification, at a discount. Waste materials are thus reused and so less water and natural gas are needed. 

New gases can also still be introduced. "That recycling has a lot of impact on the production process. We can introduce this because the customer trusts us completely. We have built a relationship. They know our system and our people." The system is at one customer's premises and a large-scale demo will be run in Germany this year. 

Strong hydrogen world

HyGear's Dutch branch can be found at the Kleefse Waard industrial park in Arnhem. "The hydrogen scene around Nijmegen and Arnhem is very strong. We do a lot together with other regional parties and suppliers such as MTSA, HyET and Hymove. Many HAN students also do internships at HyGear. We don't sit still when it comes to sustainability. Together with companies like Atag, we are looking at deploying hydrogen in households. The question is whether you can convert that so that it can be used in homes later on. And can we, for instance, soon make hydrogen with the surplus of green electricity? Only the market for that is not yet profitable and several legislative changes are needed."