Ellesmere Port-based plastic-to-clean hydrogen converter Powerhouse Energy Group has posted financial results for the year to December 2020.
Chaired by former MP Tim Yeo, the innovator sees Protos Park, its Cheshire HQ, as the springboard for a string of 70 or so clean hydrogen production and UK refuelling stations, to be co-developed with its landlord Peel NRE. The partners this month announced their second confirmed site will be at Rothesay dock in Glasgow.
Core of Powerhouse’s technology is its patented DMG – Distributed Modular Generation – know-how, a refinement of advanced thermal conversion.
Under their exclusivity agreement Powerhouse receives £500,000 for each DMG-equipped site to be opened by the Peel division. Each site is financially ring-fenced as a special purpose vehicle.
Yeo told investors that Peel NRE had identified in excess of 70 potential sites, “a number of which are already in their ownership”, he noted.
Among financial highlights, the chairman pointed out Powerhouse’s raising of £10 million early in 2021 to ensure development at the Protos site. Powerhouse lent Peel £3.8 million of the raise to ensure completion of the first of the partnership’s SPVs.
Construction of the Ellesmere Port plant is Powerhouse’s ‘number one priority’, its chairman told investors: “when accomplished, (Protos) opens up a worldwide market for our DMG technology”, Yeo stated.
Ian Crockford, once project delivery supremo for the London 2012 Olympics, has advised since April 2021 on Protos Park’s completion.
Yeo identified ‘the White family’ as Powerhouse’s biggest shareholder, controlling approximately 26% of the group shares. The family had maintained that holding, subscribing to both the group’s recent share offerings. New financial regulations from March touching on the group’s LSE listing mean that no ‘persons with significant control’ are listed for Powerhouse at Companies House.
Investors on the LSE welcomed Powerhouse’s 2020 results. By 4pm on the day of Yeo’s announcement, its share price had risen 3.3% to 4.65 pence, valuing the company at £176.5 million.
More on Powerhouse’s results here,
