A joint venture between Austrian utility VERBUND, steelmaker voestalpine, the Austrian Power Grid, metallurgical research organisation K1-MET, the Netherland’s Energy Research Centre, the Austrian Entrepreneurship Center Network and Siemens is to establish a proton exchange membrane (PEM) electrolysis system to produce hydrogen for steelmaking at one of voestalpine’s steel plants in Linz, Austria. Known as H2FUTURE, the joint venture aims to demonstrate steelmaking from ‘green’ hydrogen produced from renewable energies, seen as a promising way of reducing the carbon footprint of the steelmaking industry, which is estimated to be the source of 6% of manmade CO₂ emissions. The electrolysis facility will consume 6 MW of electricity, with a design hydrogen output of 1200 m³ of hydrogen/hour, and a design efficiency rate for turning the electricity into hydrogen of 80%. It is expected to be up and running in 2019, and an industrial scale facility would be the next step for the team. The project is an exciting one for the steel industry and will be followed with interest across the world.