The Harting Technology Group has commissioned a new fuel cell plant at its Espelkamp site. The pilot plant, supplied by Bavarian manufacturer Reverion, complements the company’s existing biogas and photovoltaic plants. In its initial phase, the plant will convert locally produced biogas directly into electricity, making the Espelkamp site’s energy supply more efficient and climate-neutral.

‘The plant complements our energy management perfectly,’ said Philip Harting, CEO, HARTING Technology Group. ‘It is not just another building block in climate-neutral production. It also enables us to maintain a sustainable and resilient energy supply during shortages or at times of peak demand.’

In future, the fuel cell plant will also temporarily store renewable energy as green hydrogen and convert it back into usable energy when required. A key advantage of Reverion’s technology is its high efficiency across the energy cycle. While many conventional solutions using separate electrolysers, gas storage and reverse power output recover only 40 to 50 per cent of the energy used, Reverion achieves significantly higher electrical efficiency when reconverting hydrogen into electricity. Its round-trip efficiency — from electricity to hydrogen and back to electricity — is up to 75 per cent. Energy not converted into electricity can also be used as process heat in the biogas plant to maintain fermentation.

This is enabled by reversible high-temperature technology, the elimination of combustion and the integration of all conversion steps into a single plant, significantly reducing energy losses.

Sven Oßenbrink, Vice President, Corporate Real Estate Management & Facility Management, HARTING, said, ‘The Reverion plant is ideally integrated into our existing infrastructure and can be incorporated into energy and load management via defined interfaces. It is precisely this transparency and controllability — from power input to return feed-in — that is of central importance for the safety of our operation and further development of our energy system.’

HARTING is currently testing various system configurations to determine the appropriate storage capacity and application for future scaling. The system is technically designed for a power input of up to 250 kilowatts in electrolysis mode and a reverse power output of up to 100 kilowatts in fuel cell mode. It currently covers around 3 per cent of the energy demand at the Espelkamp site and complements the existing energy infrastructure. The electricity generated is used in production and administration at plants 2, 3a, 3b and 7.

At present, the plant plays a minor role in addressing bottlenecks or peak loads. However, when scaled up, the technology could enable flexible and fail-safe load management.

The Reverion plant uses Harting connectors from the Han® portfolio, specifically Han® HPR housings and Han-Modular® inserts. These provide high-performance, robust and flexible interfaces for signals, data and power within the plant. Their modular design allows different transmission media to be combined within a single connector and securely integrated, ensuring seamless interaction across systems.

‘We are delighted that HARTING is convinced by our technology and is using it in its own energy system,’ said Maximilian Schmitt, Head of Sales & Marketing, Reverion. ‘The project in Espelkamp demonstrates that our reversible technology not only achieves high efficiency levels but can also be integrated into existing industrial infrastructures in a practical and reliable manner. The collaboration with Harting is a strong reference project for us and provides an important impetus for the further scaling of our technology.’