An Albuquerque-based clean energy startup recently announced the location and partner for a hydrogen production facility.
The startup, BayoTech Inc., has broken ground on a new hydrogen production facility in Wentzville, Missouri, through a partnership with St. Louis’ Ranken Technical College. BayoTech said the new facility will be located on Ranken’s Wentzville campus, at 755 Parr Road, and is slated to annually produce 350 tons of “low-cost, low-carbon hydrogen for local users.”
The facility marks the beginning of what could be dozens of hydrogen hubs that BayoTech plans to build across the U.S. and then, possibly, overseas, Chief Financial Officer Wendy Rollstin said during an October media tour of the company’s Albuquerque headquarters.
BayoTech, founded in 2016, is focused on creating small, localized hydrogen production plants designed to more quickly and cheaply provide hydrogen compared with larger-scale production facilities. The hubs are designed for “localized” production, meaning lower transportation costs and easier on-site access for hydrogen-using companies and vehicles.
In a Dec. 15 news release, BayoTech said it will own the Wentzville production plant and expects it to create 10 full-time jobs. The facility is supposed to be operational in the second quarter of 2023. When asked about the size of the lot where the facility would be built, a company spokesperson declined to provide that information to Albuquerque Business First in a Dec. 16 email.
“BayoTech is proud to partner with an institution as forward-thinking as Ranken Technical College. Our investment will produce the low-carbon fuel needed to reduce local emissions while developing the next generation of energy workers,” BayoTech CEO Mo Vargas said in a statement.
BayoTech already has some ties to the St. Louis region besides this new Wentzville facility. It’s a portfolio company of St. Louis venture capital firm Cultivation Capital and in 2021 forged a partnership with Emerson Electric (NYSE: EMR) that involves using the Ferguson-based industrial giant’s automation technology to produce its hydrogen.
The company isn’t disclosing the capital investment behind the new facility, the spokesperson said in the email. BayoTech’s $157 million Series C funding round, announced in January 2021, is one of the largest rounds in New Mexico’s history, according to CrunchBase.
As part of the startup’s St. Louis-area expansion, BayoTech and Ranken plan to work together to create new education programs focused on hydrogen production, officials said.
This story originally appeared in St. Louis Inno. It has been updated for publication in New Mexico Inno
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