The HARTING Technology Group is committed to hydrogen technology and, as evidence of this, has now commissioned a new fuel cell plant at its Espelkamp site. The pilot plant, supplied by the Bavarian manufacturer Reverion, complements the existing biogas and photovoltaic systems. Initially, the plant will convert locally produced biogas directly into electricity, thereby making the energy supply at the Espelkamp site even more efficient and climate-neutral.

“The plant perfectly complements our energy management,” said Philip Harting, CEO of the HARTING Technology Group. “It is not only another building block of climate-neutral production. It also enables us to maintain a sustainable and resilient energy supply during shortages or peak demand periods.”

In the future, the fuel cell plant will also temporarily store the generated renewable energy in the form of green hydrogen and convert it back into usable energy as needed. The particular advantage of Reverion’s technology lies in its exceptionally high efficiency throughout the entire energy cycle. While many conventional solutions with separate electrolyzers, gas storage tanks, and power reconversion recover only 40 to 50 percent of the energy input, Reverion achieves a significantly higher electrical efficiency when reconverting hydrogen back into electricity. The so-called round-trip efficiency—that is, the path from electricity to hydrogen and back to electricity—is as high as 75 percent. An additional highlight: Energy that is not converted into electricity can be used as process heat in the biogas plant to maintain the fermentation process.

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

Sven Oßenbrink, Vice President of Corporate Real Estate Management & Facility Management at HARTING, emphasizes: “The Reverion plant is ideally integrated into our existing infrastructure and can be incorporated into our energy and load management systems via defined interfaces. It is precisely this transparency and controllability—from power consumption to power feed-back—that is of central importance for the safe operation and further development of our energy system.”

In the current phase of expansion, HARTING is testing various system configurations to determine the appropriate storage capacity and application for future scaling. Technically, the system is designed for a power draw of up to 250 kilowatts in electrolysis mode and a power output of up to 100 kilowatts in fuel cell mode. It currently covers approximately three percent of the energy demand at the Espelkamp site, thereby supplementing the existing energy infrastructure. The electricity generated is used in production and administrative operations at Plants 2, 3a, 3b, and 7.

The plant currently plays only a minor role in addressing bottlenecks or peak loads. Looking ahead, however, the technology—especially when scaled up—opens up new possibilities for 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. Thanks to the modular design, different transmission media can be combined within a single connector and securely integrated. This ensures reliable interaction among all systems.

“We are very pleased that HARTING is convinced of our technology and is using it in its own energy system,” says Maximilian Schmitt, Head of Sales & Marketing at Reverion. “The project in Espelkamp demonstrates that our reversible technology not only achieves high efficiency 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 an important catalyst for the further scaling of our technology.”

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