Topsoe recently filed plans for a manufacturing facility in Chesterfield, following the company’s announcement of the $400 million project in the spring of 2024. (County documents)
While it navigates an uncertain outlook for federal clean-energy financial incentives, Danish company Topsoe continues to take incremental steps toward building a nine-figure manufacturing facility in Chesterfield.
The company last week submitted formal site plans with the county for a $400 million plant that would make electrolyzer cells for “clean hydrogen” fuel. Documents show a 300,000-square-foot, two-story facility to be built on a 43-acre site at Meadowville Technology Park.
Last year Topsoe bought a 57-acre site at 11700 Meadowville Lane and 1301 Meadowville Technology Parkway from the Chesterfield EDA, and the plant is slated to rise on a portion of the property. The recent site plan shows a future second phase of development on some of the remaining acreage.
The company has previously described the facility as a two-year project to build. The facility’s construction has been estimated at $140 million, and its equipment is projected to cost $260 million.
Topsoe is designing the Chesterfield plant with Swiss automation company ABB and Texas-based construction firm Fluor. Timmons Group has been tapped to handle engineering work for the project.
A site plan showing Topsoe’s planned manufacturing facility in Meadowville Technology Park in Chesterfield.
The Chesterfield plant would manufacture solid oxide electrolyzer cells, or SOEC, which use electricity to generate what Topsoe calls “clean hydrogen” that is used as a fuel source. The cells to be manufactured at the plant are aimed at heavy-industry users such as chemical and cement makers as well as the transportation industry.
Though it continues to take steps in planning for the facility, Topsoe said the uncertain outlook for the future of federal funding incentives such as the Clean Hydrogen Production Tax Credit (45V) program, which provides up to $3 per kilogram of qualifying hydrogen generated at approved facilities, has prompted the company to slow the pace of the Chesterfield project’s development.
It said it continues to watch whether incentives created by the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act survive the budget-writing process underway in the Republican-led Congress.
“Continued uncertainty around critical incentives, such as 45V, have a significant impact on broader market conditions for scaling the clean hydrogen industry,” a Topsoe spokesperson said in a prepared statement. “We are revisiting the timeline for the construction of the potential SOEC factory.”
Topsoe has described the project as being its largest U.S. investment to date. The plant would be its first local facility and is expected to create 150 jobs. Topsoe also operates a manufacturing facility outside Houston, Texas. Late last year, the company began production at a plant in Denmark that makes solid oxide electrolyzer cells.
When Topsoe announced the project in 2024, the company said it had been allocated $136 million under the Qualifying Advanced Energy Project Credit (48C) program to support the project’s construction.
The company and Chesterfield have inked a performance grant agreement that would provide incentives from the county if the project is completed by the end of 2029. The project also is eligible for state incentives.
Topsoe recently filed plans for a manufacturing facility in Chesterfield, following the company’s announcement of the $400 million project in the spring of 2024. (County documents)
While it navigates an uncertain outlook for federal clean-energy financial incentives, Danish company Topsoe continues to take incremental steps toward building a nine-figure manufacturing facility in Chesterfield.
The company last week submitted formal site plans with the county for a $400 million plant that would make electrolyzer cells for “clean hydrogen” fuel. Documents show a 300,000-square-foot, two-story facility to be built on a 43-acre site at Meadowville Technology Park.
Last year Topsoe bought a 57-acre site at 11700 Meadowville Lane and 1301 Meadowville Technology Parkway from the Chesterfield EDA, and the plant is slated to rise on a portion of the property. The recent site plan shows a future second phase of development on some of the remaining acreage.
The company has previously described the facility as a two-year project to build. The facility’s construction has been estimated at $140 million, and its equipment is projected to cost $260 million.
Topsoe is designing the Chesterfield plant with Swiss automation company ABB and Texas-based construction firm Fluor. Timmons Group has been tapped to handle engineering work for the project.
A site plan showing Topsoe’s planned manufacturing facility in Meadowville Technology Park in Chesterfield.
The Chesterfield plant would manufacture solid oxide electrolyzer cells, or SOEC, which use electricity to generate what Topsoe calls “clean hydrogen” that is used as a fuel source. The cells to be manufactured at the plant are aimed at heavy-industry users such as chemical and cement makers as well as the transportation industry.
Though it continues to take steps in planning for the facility, Topsoe said the uncertain outlook for the future of federal funding incentives such as the Clean Hydrogen Production Tax Credit (45V) program, which provides up to $3 per kilogram of qualifying hydrogen generated at approved facilities, has prompted the company to slow the pace of the Chesterfield project’s development.
It said it continues to watch whether incentives created by the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act survive the budget-writing process underway in the Republican-led Congress.
“Continued uncertainty around critical incentives, such as 45V, have a significant impact on broader market conditions for scaling the clean hydrogen industry,” a Topsoe spokesperson said in a prepared statement. “We are revisiting the timeline for the construction of the potential SOEC factory.”
Topsoe has described the project as being its largest U.S. investment to date. The plant would be its first local facility and is expected to create 150 jobs. Topsoe also operates a manufacturing facility outside Houston, Texas. Late last year, the company began production at a plant in Denmark that makes solid oxide electrolyzer cells.
When Topsoe announced the project in 2024, the company said it had been allocated $136 million under the Qualifying Advanced Energy Project Credit (48C) program to support the project’s construction.
The company and Chesterfield have inked a performance grant agreement that would provide incentives from the county if the project is completed by the end of 2029. The project also is eligible for state incentives.
I kind of wounder if they would build this factory to build other things besides hydrogen fuel cells. In that right now every hydrogen fuel cell project is being scraped and even before Trump a lot of them were not panning out.
The hydrogen generated by an SOEC is only as clean as the electricity used to power the SOEC.