Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and I'd like to welcome you and thank you for attending today's call on this short notice. So this morning, we issued a press release on our R and D collaboration with Anglo American on PGM based catalysts that will simplify hydrogen storage and use in fuel cell electric vehicles. We indeed clearly see Strong traction in the hydrogen economy in general and it brings attractive growth opportunities for Umicore. So the purpose of today's call is to give context around Umicore's positioning in various hydrogen applications. It is, however, not the purpose to give you a full strategic update nor to dive into financials.
So I'd be grateful if you could focus your questions on technology rather than on numbers. So on today's call, as you heard, we first have a formal presentation by Ann Leland, our Chief Technology Officer and Joakim Dursun, SVP, Fuel Cell and Stationery Catalysts. This will be followed by Q and A where Lothar Moosman, SVP, New Business Incubation, Catalysis And Connectivity and IP also joins us. So let's kick off. Anne, the floor is yours.
Fast refilling and non operating range. It can also be used as a storage medium for fluctuating solar and wind Using electrolysis and of course green hydrogen can be used for the decarbonization of the industry with the production of alternative fuels and other products. Fuel cell technology has come a long way, where 20, 30 years ago, it was not so clear yet Which fuel to use, hydrogen, methanol, gasoline? When hydrogen became the fuel of choice, there was always the question how to store it. Under pressure, liquid at minus 253 degrees are chemically bound.
Now Pressurized and compressed hydrogen at 70350 bar is now common and based on this hydrogen filling stations were developed and are being installed. So after 30 years, we see more and more commercial fuel cell vehicles on the market. Umicore has been part of this journey from the beginning. At Umicore, we have been developing catalysts for fuel cells and electrolyzers for over 30 years. We started in 1990 with the first Developments of platinum and carbon black catalysts.
As part of the PMGL position in 2003, Yumiko also acquired PMG's fuel cell catalyst activity. Since 2014, The increasing market interest has led to an acceleration of our fuel cell catalyst development activities. In 2018, we established our first mass production in Korea and 1 year later we commissioned a new greenfield plant in Korea to be able to follow the growing demand of our customers there. In 2020, we launched a separate business unit fuel cells and stationary catalysts and move the business unit's headquarters to Suzhou in view of our Chinese market development. We continue to explore opportunities to expand our activities contributing to the green hydrogen economy.
That's why today we announced the joint R and D program with Anglo American Platinum on liquid organic hydrogen carriers. Historically, our fewer cell activities have a strong presence in Europe. But in recent years, we have been expanding our presence Towards Asia, based on the growing customer demand. We continue to invest in R and D to develop the next generation catalysts. Our global footprint consists today of 4 R and D sites and 2 production facilities And the customer support center in Japan.
And then most recently, we have the opening of our fuel cells and stationary catalysts business unit in China to support our customers in the growing Chinese market. Yumiko is preparing ground for future growth in green hydrogen economy And besides our profitable business activity and fuel cell catalysts for transportation, with a turnover of EUR 40,000,000 in 2020. We are also developing catalysts for PEM electrolyzers, so proton Exchange membrane electrolyzers using, of course, our 30 year experience in catalyst material development. We are also participating in joint development programs with our industrial and academic partners. Global logistics and storage Of renewable hydrogen is expected to be a very important element of future CO2 neutral energy system.
And today's way of transporting and storing hydrogen is mainly based on liquid hydrogen, which has to be stored at a very low temperature or using compressed hydrogen. At this moment, fuel cell vehicles are mainly powered using compressed hydrogen. Insufficient infrastructure and refueling networks for compressed hydrogen represents one of the main challenges for a more widespread use of hydrogen in the transportation industry. That's why at Umicore, we launched an incubation program that focuses on liquids organic hydrogen carriers as a way to transport and store hydrogen. Liquid organic hydrogen carrying technologies offer an effective alternative solution by chemically bonding hydrogen to a stable liquid organic carrier.
That eliminates the need for compression and enables a more practical and cost efficient way to transport hydrogen compared to the existing rates of hydrogen fueling today. The transition to renewable energy sources And using green hydrogen as an energy
carrier requires
a number of cryptoplasmic metals. And The resource availability of these metals for the large scale implementation of hydrogen based technologies will be crucially important, Especially when you look at the highly concentrated geographical distribution of the metals and the lack of substitute materials. That's why at Umicore, we invest in a continuous R and D effort to reduce the metal loading of the catalyst while optimizing the performance and the durability of the catalyst. And together with our recycling group, we are also developing flow sheets to close material, look to recycle these valuable metals from production scrap and in the longer term also from end of life fuel cells. Now I hand over the word to Joakim, and he will give you an update regarding our fuel cell catalyst business.
Thank you, Anne.
So the first growth opportunity in the hydrogen economy that we will address in more detail today is catalysts For fuel cell applications in transportation, we see significant potential in heavy duty vehicles And in large light duty vehicles with long range requirements. This can be SUVs, this can be pickup trucks, this can be MPVs. There is a lot of traction in this market today and we see it as an attractive near term growth potential for Umicore. You can go to the next slide, please. So we see a near term growth potential for Umicore In fuel cell catalysts for heavy duty vehicles and long range light duty vehicles.
And what is it that Umicore is offering? Umicore produces catalysts for the cathode and anode electrode of proton exchange membrane fuel cells, chem fuel cells. We supply catalysts to customers in the entire value chain across the entire value chain ranging from automotive OEMs, System suppliers, spec producers and membrane electrode assembly Manufacturers, MEA Manufacturers. And at Umicore, we do have the capabilities to support our customers In their development of fuel cell technology, we can support them on how to optimally use our catalysts in their systems, In the systems and in the MEAs. And what is a fuel cell system?
Please look at the diagram to the right. Here you see a schematic point of a fuel cell system. A fuel cell is a device where you transform chemical energy into power. Pure hydrogen is fed to the anode where it's split into protons and electrons, And the electrons can be used as an external power source. The driving force for this reaction is the presence Of an oxygen at the cathode and the protons will be transported through the proton Exchange membrane, the PEM membrane.
It reacts with oxygen and pure water is formed. Please go to the next slide. So we see this near term growth potential in fuel cell catalysts for heavy duty vehicles and long range light duty vehicles. And the fuel cell technology is actually a perfect solution to cater long range heavy duty vehicles and buses, Providing a strong propulsive power. In light duty vehicles, we do foresee a widespread use of battery Technology for battery electrical vehicles, but we also see a potential for the use of fuel cell technology in long range light duty vehicles.
And the key fuel cell technology in automotive applications will be the proton exchange membrane technology, the PEM technology. And the legislation is supported globally in Korea, in Japan, in China and Europe. And by 2,030, we estimate a market size of 150 gigawatts in heavy duty vehicles and light duty vehicles with a significant Part in both segments. In terms of catalyst, this corresponds to 120 metric tons of catalyst. So we see a growth potential and as the demand of our customers It's increasing.
We definitely plan to scale up our production capacity. And you can expect sometime in the Near future, we will announce further capacity expansions. Already today, we are a qualified supplier of more than 10 OEMs across the regions, this being car and truck OEMs as well as spec producers and system manufacturers. And among these leading fuel cell companies, our materials and catalysts are being considered as benchmark materials And this is all based on many, many years of research and development. And today, we have research and development and production in both Germany and Korea.
And we commissioned our first mass production We will go to the next slide. At Umicore, we have numerous key customer cooperations with OEMs as well as system integrators, STACK and MEA suppliers. And as I said, we are today already qualified supplier of more than 10 OEMs. In this slide, you see the ramp up time line for already qualified business awards in terms of SOP. SOP is an abbreviation for start of production.
And as you can see in this diagram, The first programs were already initiated last year. This year and next year, we expect the initiation of further programs. And by 2024, we expect a second wave of programs to be started. And on top of This already evolved business to have ongoing engagements for new platforms globally. Please go to next slide.
Umicore is a supplier of Hyundai Motor Company for Qcell Canvests. And Hyundai Motor Company is one of the first manufacturers to make hydrogen fuel cell vehicles commercially available. Together with the Umicore, we are focused on advanced fuel cell technology in order to boost range performance and durability. And in 2018, the NEXO passenger car was launched and this is today the only fuel cell SUV in the world with 100 and 35 kilowatt powertrain and a range of 6 66 kilometers. Umicore and Xuntae Motor Company's cooperation with Umicore as a supplier and co developer of PEM fuel cell catalyst Started already back in 2,009.
And this has led to high performance and highly durable fuel cell systems with Umicore catalysts. And based on this, Hyundai, already today, Sold more than 10,000 NEXO vehicles with almost 7,000 in 2020. You can go to next slide. Today, we supply The current generations of our leading fuel cell catalyst technology. And in this slide, you see the road map to reduce PDM loading and make fuel cell By 2023, we expect to launch a 3rd generation of catalysts And by 2027, a 4th generation of catalysts.
And this is all done in order to enable our customers to reduce PGM content and to increase durability of the This is based on in house research and development, but definitely also on an extensive External Research Network on fuel cells with key institutes in Europe, U. S. And Korea. You may recall we do open innovation Thank you. You can go to next slide.
Okay. Thank you, Joachim. So and as I mentioned before, compressed hydrogen is mainly used to power fuel cell vehicles today. And Unfortunately, there is insufficient infrastructure and refueling networks for this compressed hydrogen represented today and that's one of the main barriers For more widespread use of hydrogen in the transport industry, liquid organic hydrogen carrier technologies Provide now an effective alternative solution by chemically bonding hydrogen to a stable liquid carrier And as such, it can eliminate the need for compression and make it safer, more practical and more cost efficient to Transport hydrogen using existing conventional fuel networks. Now how does The liquid organic hydrogen carrier work.
These LOHC components are typically organic compounds that can absorb And release hydrogen through chemical reactions. That's why the Alawichi can store hydrogen. So how you look at it is that hydrogen preferably produced through electrolysis from renewable energy sources is absorbed Onto the liquid organic carrier using a hydrogenation catalyst. This can be done on the remote site. This liquid substance is then stored and transported using regular transportation means under ambient temperature and pressure Towards the fueling stations.
Transportation of hydrogen over long distances is in that way safer, it's more practical, it's more cost Fuel cell cars are then fueled with hydrogen rich LOHC using existing fueling infrastructure and short defueling times. To power on the fuel cell car and onboard hydrogen releases from the LOHC system using a dehydrogenation catalyst. So it's clear that LOHC has We've begun to optimize the catalysts for dehydrogenation. The current catalyst system requires high pressures and temperature For the dehydrogenation process, which is not compatible with the operating window in a fuel celled vehicle and does not match with requirements for onboard So our R and D program at Yourncore focuses on the development of new catalysts to allow a lower pressure and temperature regime for the dehydrogenation step. This is a long term early stage R and D program Within Umicore and Umicore collaborates here with academic and industrial partners.
The announcement earlier today between Umicore and Anglo American Platinum also part of this effort. Hydrogen comes in many forms from fossil fuel based gray hydrogen to renewable based Green hydrogen, but today 95% of the hydrogen produced is green. But it's only green hydrogen that's compatible with the Sustainable and climate neutral use of energy. Now for the production of green hydrogen, different electrolyzer technologies Existing are currently under development. There is an alkaline electrolyzer and proton exchange membranes or PEM electrolyzer, Solid oxide electrolyzers and anion exchange membrane electrolyzers.
All of them make use of metal based catalysts and alkaline and PEM type electrolyzers will most likely be dominant in the next years to come. The cost of green hydrogen depends especially on the renewable electricity But also on the investment cost of the electrolyters and its operating hours. A rapid scale up of the electrolyzer deployment will take place in the next And if the renewable electricity cost continues to come down to competitive range, Green hydrogen could start to compete with rayonblue hydrogen by 2,030. Electrolyzers produce green hydrogen from water and renewable electricity. And PAM's electrolyzers use a thin film membrane to Tetris Hydrogen Oxygen.
Then type electrolyzers, betaBL uses similar catalysts as are used In fuel cells, so Umicore has here a long history developing those catalysts and also can derive the know how from the work that's going on in our fuel So, Catalyst Development. PEM production, so PEM hydrogen production has the advantage of fast start up. It's very good dynamic behavior. It has no corrosion and simple maintenance and it has a smaller footprint than alkaline technologies. But on the other hand, the higher manufacturing costs and catalyst costs are the main factors to address in the development of future PEM Hydrogen Technology and Catalyst.
Now it is expected that both technologies will coexist For the coming decade, the film electrolyzer market is expected to grow towards an accumulated 90 gigawatts by 2,030 with an estimated catalyst demand of 67 tons by 2,030. At Umicore, we continue to invest in R and D to optimize We have collaborations with best in class research institutes to accelerate our fundamental research. We are also active members in well established hydrogen platforms and forms to stimulate the green hydrogen economy together with other industrial Players with governments and with academia. The role of government is critical in defining National Hygiene strategies and setting the ambition level here. So as key takeaways, we would like to leave you with the following messages.
Sustainability and carbon neutrality are high on the agenda of many governments and of Eurmics. It's a way forward and it's part of the post COVID recovery plan for governments across the globe. COVID strengthened even more the need for Sustainable Energy Transition. Cubicore has a 30 year history in producing catalyst materials Fuel cell cars and electrolyzers. This reflects an attractive business growth for fuel cell catalysts for heavy duty vehicles and long range light duty vehicles.
We are already a supplier to more than 10 car and truck OEMs, system integrators, tech and MEA lending suppliers. We have a global presence with 4 R and D sites and 2 industrial production sites in Germany and Korea, And we recently moved our business unit headquarters to China. This day, we are well positioned to capture Near term growth in fuel cell cabinet market. For the longer term, We continue to invest in the development of high performing and cost efficient catalysts for fuel cell vehicles And more recently also for the development of catalysts for liquid organic Hydrogen Carriers. With the potential to optimize transport and storage of hydrogen and to simplify actually the fueling of fuel cell cars.
And with this, I would like to end the presentation. Thank you very much for your And I think the floor is open. And the operator will open the floor now for Q and A
Thank you. We will now begin to kick the question and answer session. Your first question comes from the line of Alex Stewart from Barclays. Please ask your question.
Hello, good morning. Thank you for doing this presentation. It's really helpful to understand bits of Uniquor business, so I appreciate that. Just to be clear, my understanding is that you generate hydrogen using electrolysis. You convert hydrogen Through hydrogenation to a liquid organic carrier.
You put the liquid organic carrier into the car. That dehydrogenates, Extracts the pure hydrogen. The hydrogen fuel is the fuel cell. You're left then with a liquid an organic liquid, which needs to be disposed of. But I'm struggling to see what the logic of all of this is because there's a roughly 40% loss of energy in an electrolyzer unit, there's then Loss of energy and costs in hydrogenation.
There's a loss of energy and costs in dehydrogenation. And then you need to extract the organic carrier. So that's a lot of additional energy loss. And if the sole purpose of this is to ease the logistics and transportation The liquid or pressurized hydrogen to refueling stations, in principle, I see how that works, but 99% of the rest of the market is investing in The sort of the old technology, which is getting pure hydrogen to hydrogen fuel cells. So could you perhaps talk about why you think this is better than The strategy that almost everyone else is deploying would be very helpful, particularly around this energy loss and the energy conversion And the cost of hydrogenation and dehydrogenation and what to do with the organic carrier?
Yes. Thank you very much for the question, absolutely. So basically, as we have said today already, hydrogen is mainly being stored as a compressed Yes. That's the way that fuel cell vehicles today are being foreseen with the hydrogen Now for this compressed gas, of course, there is a lot of work being done today to make that safe To basically understand how the effort is going into the safe fuel cell vehicle design and packaging of these tanks Under this high pressure, they have laser sensors. For instance, the vehicle's With alarms and valves to make sure that this all happens in a safe way, testing is done in a safe way.
The consequence of that is, of course, that the tank Contributes quite significantly to the overall cost of fuel cell vehicle. So that is one thing. Also the insufficient infrastructure and refueling networks for compressed hydrogen stations, which have to be modified It's also still in development and takes time. So the advantages back to liquid organic hygiene carriers is that first of Paul, it's chemically bound. It is a very stable chemical reaction that happens there With very minor hydrogen loss, that's one thing.
It's of course also as you said, it's a liquid under ambient conditions, so temperature and pressure, which basically helps also in the volume that it takes in the car. It Behaves like fossil fuel, so it can make use of the infrastructure same as it's being used for fossil fuel today. And yes, with the equipment that we have today and the infrastructure that we have today, it is a convenient solution to work on this. Now that said, it's still early stage. This is still a development program.
We still need to work on the catalyst For the hydrogenation to make it compatible with onboard dehydrogenation. So also the efficiency there needs to improve, But it has the potential to basically be a very efficient hygiene carrier towards the future. And I don't know if maybe Lothar, if you want to add Comments to this question?
Yes, maybe just a few, but you raised the main point Of course, that is also linked to compressed hydrogen, which is a tank. So that definitely can be replaced by a normal tank, again, like for the Fuel, the infrastructure, you use the same kind of tanks, boats, to actually Kerry, the hydrogen from places is very cheap renewable energy sources to places where hydrogen is used. So you actually solving also Some of the disconnect and the transport cost for LOIC is definitely significantly lower, actually by the principle than you would have for Compressed hydrogen, for example, on these distances and there you also would not have an infrastructure like pipeline. There's a lot of Discussions, for example, in Northern Europe, where you use existing gas pipelines, unfortunately, these type of pipelines do not exist, For example, in between Chile and Europe, and Chile might become a place on North Africa and in Europe, and then you would build on the boat. So I see LOHC as a carrier, hydrogen carrier here as a very cost effective fit.
Go ahead, Lars. If I
could just comment on that because liquid organic hydrogen carriers are very effective to transport hydrogen on businesses. I think people accept that. What I'm struggling to understand is the establishment of the hydrogen infrastructure network, pipelines, Liquefaction units, whatever it might be, in order to power fuel cell vehicles is a huge Fixed cost. So in betting on another different technology, Isn't that a little bit like trying to reinvent the wheel when the wheel is already mostly been invented? Because you then have to double up the infrastructure To get the organic hydrogen carriers to the station, you need to get the equipment in the station, you need to get the car companies to fit your catalyst and the additional unit and change the tank.
It just feels like the whole world has gone so far down the pure hydrogen group for fuel cells that it may be difficult to get everyone to change to this technology. Perhaps I'm missing something because this is the first time I've heard it.
No, no, no. Thank you again for your comments. I think what we are basically trying to accomplish here is We want the fastest penetration of fuel cell vehicles in the market and anything we can do to resolve the bottleneck of fueling and infrastructure there where we can help, we will do that. We're not saying today that Compressed hydrogen is going to be replaced by liquid organic hydrogen carriers. Likely, it will be and also if you look at the maturity of these Technology that already compressed hydrogen is already being used today.
Liquid organic hydrogen carriers is still an R and D program for the future. So we believe it's definitely not being replacing compressed hydrogen, but that's one thing and that work will continue that Sasaksha will continue. Liquid organic housing carriers, the idea would be if you can develop it well that you can reuse Current fueling infrastructures to basically transport the LHC. So in that sense, it should be much Cheaper to basically invest in that infrastructure compared to a completely new infrastructure that need to be set up or that is being set up for compressed hydrogen. But we are not saying here today that one will replace the other known to support The adoption of fuel cells in the market, we are basically looking at all angles to have yes, to see all this bottleneck of transportation.
Yes. Maybe just to add here the examples where this could ideally apply, We also see it more on the bigger mobile application like trains, trucks and potentially marine And maybe because you're right, you have to install these dehydrogenation step as a unit that takes Some place and you will most probably not put that on the smallest car. But this being said, trucks Very often operated in very remote areas. Just go to a mine, and there it would be very costly to install that Type of infrastructure just for that mine. And here actually by easy carry of This LOHC and using it directly, for example, on the trucks makes it really efficient.
Thank you.
Your next question comes from the line of Charlie Webb from Morgan Stanley. Please ask your question.
Hi, everyone. Thank you very much again for the call. Maybe just 2 from me. So first off, thank you for kind of sharing how big the business is. I think you've got €40,000,000 of sales, including the metals.
I Just want to check my understanding. That primarily today relates to the fuel cell business. And then when we think about the fuel cell business, if I remember rightly, I mean Hyundai has been A very important collaborator and partner. Is it fair to say that much of that is associated to your business with Hyundai? Just trying to understand the kind of 10 other OEMs that you're qualified with versus the Hyundai partnership that's obviously been somewhat longer standing.
That's kind of the first question or question, sorry. And then second one just around TGM loadings and thinking about This organic liquid hydrogen, is there a significant difference in the PGM loadings When using this solution, is that an attraction? And maybe you can just remind us today kind of where Umicore sits on PGM loadings, Fuel cell technology, how does that compare to the industry and the benchmark currently set? Is that the benchmark currently set? Would be very helpful.
Yes, thank you for the question. So I think the first question was regarding the fuel cell business And the revenue that we generated, I would like to remind you that of course this call is mainly to talk about our strategic activities and the application domain That Umicore basically has and is developing in the green hydrogen economy space. With that said, we see definitely the fuel cell market and demand picking up. So that contributes largely to our profitable business that we have today. And I don't know for the second part of the question, Joakim, I don't know if you want to clarify a little bit the numbers that you have already put up there in your presentation.
Yes, sure. I can do this. And the second part of the question was on the number of customers And Hyundai being a dominating customer. Today, actually, we have multiple customers in the future business and it's not only Hyundai. As we present in our presentation, we are qualified at more than 10 OEMs and we have multiple customers already today.
And for the first part, I mean, I confirm that the $40,000,000 turnover relates to the fuel cell business.
Sorry, so just to clarify, so Hyundai isn't a kind of a major customer as in it isn't a dominant customer, you have a broader mix now and that relationship is diluted by the broader mix.
Okay, understood.
And maybe to add then to the question is, we are Also today capable of supporting our demands in PEM electrolyzer catalysts. This market is still growing and it's still picking up and you've seen the numbers that we Around 6 to 7 tons by 2,030, that's the assumption or the forecast today. So today, we are well capable of supplying the Small amounts of electrolyte catalyst also to our customer base there.
Sorry, maybe on the second question, I wasn't clear. I was just trying to understand The difference when we think about the organic liquid hydrogen technology that you're investigating and pursuing, Is there any difference in PGM loadings between the catalyst used in that process versus the traditional Gasified Pure Hydrogen?
Yes. So first of all, again, liquid organic hydrogen carrier, that program is an early stage R and D program. So the catalyst development work, that is basically what we are working on right now. So it's too early to say Basically, how that development is going to evolve over the coming years. But clearly, this is a different mechanism.
This is a different system. So we will use our catalyst know how that we have a lot of expertise here in house at Umicore to basically establish and develop That's catalyst for liquid organic hydrogen carriers. But it's too soon to say basically that development work, That is still a roadmap for a couple of years ahead of us.
Okay. Thank you very much.
Your next question comes from the line of JB Rolland from Bank of America.
Sorry, can you hear me now?
Yes, we can hear you.
Hi, thank
you so much for this presentation this morning. Apologies for the delay. I just wanted to ask you two questions. The first one is in relation So the capital intensity of developing fuel cell catalysts and also other types of hydrogen catalysts. Since we're this is an activity which is related to PGM, could you give us an idea about how capital intensive this activity is Compared, for example, to cathode materials and whether you would expect or we should expect that Mass market development would require you to raise capital if your balance sheet couldn't sustain net debt to EBITDA leverage?
And then the second question is related to barriers to entry. From what I understand, It looks like you have an early mover advantage given the number of qualification with OEMs that you already have at this stage. And I'm wondering beyond the early mover advantage whether you feel that barriers To entry technological barriers to entry are at a different level versus battery material. Thank you.
Yes, thank you for the question. So regarding your first question on capital intensity, we will not talk about financials today In this call, but clearly as we've mentioned before, we see the market and the market opportunities growing in our fuel cell catalyst and later on also For the electrolyte catalysts, so there is definitely opportunities for Umicore that will continue to basically grow our business there. Then regarding barriers to entry, you're correct. I think at Umicore and at Umicore, We have, of course, a couple of advantages. We have 3 decades, almost 30 years of experience in Catalyst Development.
We have from the beginning very strong and early engagements with a broad range of partners across the entire ecosystem In the fuel cell space, that helps us of course to early on already co design almost material into system, which gives us, of course, at this moment an advantage and that is also know how that we've been building up over the last years. And of course also, as we recall, the sustainable metal supply chain and metal This is of course also the expertise and the way we work here within Umicore for sustainable metal supply It's of course also an advantage for Umicore and a potential barrier for others to come in.
And if you may maybe just add something Jean Baptiste to the capital intensity. So today, of course, it's too early to tell, But what we can confirm is that it's not at all comparable with the existing mass production scale of the cathode business.
Thank you so much. Can I just squeeze another quick question in relation to your Qualification with OEM? Can you give me some granularity about Maybe not the names, of course, but just an idea about over how which period of time you have built this portfolio Of customers, please.
Joakim, do you want to take this question?
Yes, sure. I can take this question. This is not Customer relations that you built overnight, this is a result of long term Corporations with global OEM. This being said, We also see a lot of traction in the market at the moment and it's clear that such cooperations have Accelerated over the last couple of years with all the attention on the hydrogen economy. Okay.
Thank you. And to give a comment to the entry barriers in the field, People working with fuel cell catalysts, they will know that this is in fact a Quite complicated catalyst system and they will know that it takes a long time To develop optimal solutions in this area, and the entry barriers are not small.
Noted. Thank you very much.
Your next question comes from the line of Sebastian Bray from Berenberg. Please ask your question.
Good morning and thank you for the presentation. I would have three questions, please. The first is on the sales figure of EUR 40,000,000. Could you give us an idea of the step down in sales that would occur if you were to exclude the metals component Is about €30,000,000 excluding Metals a reasonable guess? My second question is on end market application.
Proton exchange technology has several applications in stationary storage or stationary power generation at a low level. Why is this not a market that Umicore has targeted? And my third question is on the catalyst loading for electrolyzer Technologies versus fuel cells. Why is the tonnage of catalyst required to make 1 gigawatt of electrolyzer So much lower than the amount required for 1 gigawatt of fuel cell. Thank you.
So thank you for the questions. So if I recall here, 3 questions. The first Regarding the $40,000,000 sales and the metal part of that one. So today, we will not comment on any breakdown On the revenue and also on the metal revenue, so that we won't do today. I think your 2nd question was the end market applications and if I understood you well, you basically say why PEM electrolyzers Are not used for storage?
Is that what you asked?
No, Pete, my question was more so there are some applications of Pam, for smaller stationary power generation, why is this not a market Umicore is targeting?
So as we are, so maybe just to be clear, so our focus is catalyst development for the PEM electrolyzer market. Today, if you look at the 2 most mature electrolyzer technologies that are out there, 1 is the alkaline, 1 is the PEM electrolyzer. They have, of course, different advantages and disadvantages. Where PEM has the advantage that it has indeed a smaller footprint That is that and that it can also its dynamic behavior allows us to deal for instance with its intermittent energy from renewable sources. So that is typically where a PEN electrolyzes because the compactness and also the dynamic behavior is utilized.
So we are working clearly with our Penn Catalyst activity towards that application domain. And maybe also as I mentioned before, the platinum group metals are of course used for PEM electrolyzers. There we can Derived from our know how in our fuel cell catalyst development work, while metals catalyst metals used for alkaline on non precious metals today. But we clearly cover that application It's based with our 10 electrolytes. And then the third question regarding the catalytic loading.
So clearly, it also depends the loading depends also on the environmental conditions and the harsh conditions in which this electrolyte or fuel cell operates. And typically when you look at a fuel cell car, the environment there It's something that you need to basically make sure that your catalysts can do the work of activating, selecting the right Materials to do the bonding, making sure that you have durability there. So that typically makes the loading of fuel cell catalysts a little bit higher than Electrolux. But I'm sure that also Joakim and Lothra can comment on that last question if they want to.
Yes, I can start. It's Joakim here. First of all, for fuel cell applications, Especially in automotive applications, in order to reach the power density requirements and the durabilities, We are today at catalyst loadings in the range from 0.8 to 1 gram per kilowatt With platinum loadings in the range from 0.2 to 0.3 grams per kilowatt. And this will give you The power density and the durability required in automotive applications.
Yes.
And just for me to add and if you compare that now for electrolyzer, as An was stating, it's operated in a completely different regime. You can imagine if you drive a car on a highway and you do this acceleration and this acceleration, you will have a lot of fuel starvation, how we call it. And that is actually causing a lot of stress for the material of a fuel cell. And this you counteract with a tenancy Higher loading to actually protect against these kinds of events in terms of durability. And that's We also talk about dynamics on electrolyzer, but here we talk completely different type of dynamic of being wind a little bit harder or less hard, And we are not talking about events like on a mobile application.
That's the reason.
Just to thank you. Just as a point of clarification, my first question sorry, my second question on the Stationary power generation applications was more referring to fuel cells. Is Umicore involved In stationary power generation applications with its proton exchange fuel cell as opposed to electrolyzer technology. And if not, why has it chosen to focus exclusively on the market for mobility?
We are not limiting the application Today, I think our catalyst development work that we are doing is suitable also for stationary fuel cells. So we will definitely look into that. I think Joakim is very well positioned to comment on that.
Yes, indeed. No, we do not exclude the stationary power area. The design of the fuel cells and the catalysts I'll also hear a little bit different from mobile applications, but you certainly target both applications.
That is helpful. Thank you for taking my questions.
Your next question comes from the line of Muklu Gandigan from ABN AMRO.
Yes, good morning everyone. Two questions. The first one is on the estimated market size of 150 Gigawatts in 2,030 for your mobile opportunity. I was wondering if you could split that between HDV and LDV. And also So what kind of market share have you assumed in LTV?
And second question is on PGM content, on the loading. Can you tell us what your assumptions are in terms of PGM loading, I. E, which metals will you use most? And how does it compare to your current PGM loadings in your existing mobile emission catalysts business. Thank you.
So Joakim, do you want to take those two questions? First one about the market size of 150 gigawatts Yes.
Here, we today, I don't really want to give a specific Split between heavy duty and light duty applications, also because this is Early stage at the moment. What we can say is that we expect a significant A portion of both segments in this business. This is what we can say today.
And maybe sorry, maybe to add
to that
question. So when you see all the ambitions of governments and announcements From major OEMs globally, it is of course the indication of the rapid growth of fuel cell business in the coming years as well in especially in HDV, but also in long range LDV. Just to add to Joakim's comments. And then the second one was on the doping.
Yes. And as I said before, today in mobile applications, we are at 0.2, 0.3 Grams of platinum per kilowatt as a loading. And this also answers Your question that it will primarily be platinum that will be used as an active
And then the point that we I can say today apart from of course, part of our development programs is of course to see how we can optimize the performance and the durability of the fuel cell catalyst, while decreasing the metal loading and in such a way come to more cost efficient solution. That's definitely part of the development program, but we cannot comment in more detail today.
And your next question comes from
the line of Andrew Stach from UBS. Please ask your question.
Yes. Good morning. Thanks for taking the question. It's a question about the market structure in the catalyst EMEA area. You note that you have 10 customers already and you say within OEMs and also the system providers.
Just wondering If you could let us know what the balance is between the OEM and the system providers. So I'm assuming companies such as Ballard and Plug Power. And a broader question, but staying with the same theme. If you take a 10 year view, how do you see this market looking In terms of who gets to call the specification. So in other words, if you're selling A catalyst in this market, do you think ultimately the OEM puts the spec Into its engine and dictates that sale?
Or do you think it's the fuel cell system provider Such as Ballard. Thank you.
So I think what I can say to answer maybe both questions is that We collaborate early on with many players across the entire value chain that can be the membrane providers, spec providers, system providers. And this way we basically work together early on for the catalyst development in the system and that we can do then for multiple fuel cell It's early on in the systems. And your second question was about What was the second question? What is your second question? I'm sorry.
Yes, maybe it wasn't clear. If you take the battery material business you have, one of the debates I think the investment community has is It's who is putting the battery technology on the car. Is it the cell provider or is it the cathode company? Who's calling the shots on what goes on the platform? So it's the same question really for fuel cell components.
Do you think it would be Ballard who would, In the end, spec the platform for the OEM? Or do you think you'll directly relay that to the OEM?
I think it's well, it's too early. The value chain is still developing. So it's too early to say how the ecosystem will evolve. Today, we work with all players in the ecosystem, including also car OEMs, so basically Understand system specifications and that we also do, but it's too early to say how the value chain in Jens will develop.
Okay. Thank you.
Okay.
Now I would like to hand the call back to the speakers for some closing comments. Thank you.
Yes. Hello. Saskia speaking. I'm afraid you'll have to close Pierre. So I just wanted before we end this call today to repeat that the strategic focus It's for us clearly on clean mobility, where you can develop a really enclosed collaboration with the OEMs I just wanted to clarify as there were some comments or questions around the stationary applications as well.
So thank you for attending today's call. If you have any remaining questions, please don't hesitate to get in touch with Investor Relations. Have a nice day. Bye bye.