Chile is using money raised from lithium mining to support hydrogen electrolyser manufacturing and assembly, Kallanish understands.

Its national development agency Corfo has awarded $25 million in financing to three projects that are bringing over $50m in investments into the country, creating 1,000 direct and indirect jobs. José Miguel Benavente, executive vice president of Corfo, says the funding comes from lithium exploitation contracts in the Salar de Atacama.

The Chilean government is working on a regulatory framework for the local green hydrogen industry. The ambition is to produce 5 gigawatts of green hydrogen by 2025 and 25 GW by 2030 under its strategy to support industrial decarbonisation. It is focusing on six green hydrogen applications: oil refineries, ammonia production, mining haul trucks, heavy-duty trucking, long-range buses, and blending into gas grids (up to 20%). 

Chilean group Fastpack is building a plant in Santiago, while China’s Beijing Sinohy Energy and Spanish company Joltech Solutions are building two separate facilities in the Biobío region.

Fastpack is planning a $10m facility to assemble alkaline electrolysers between 10 kilowatts and 50 megawatts, proton exchange membrane (PEM) electrolysers between 50 kW and 1 MW, as well as manufacturing auxiliary systems. Its partners are local companies Mining3 Chile and L&A Ingeniería y Proyectos, the Adolfo Ibáñez University, and Chinese firm Jiangsu Guofu Hydrogen Energy Equipment Co.

Beijing SinoHyEnergy is collaborating with construction company Constructora Manuel Enríquez Talcahuano and equipment provider Conmetal for a factory planned to begin operations in mid-2026. It will assemble alkaline electrolysers with a capacity of 2.5-5 MW, produce structural components, and import specialised components such as membranes, and catalysts, among others.

Joltech, a spinoff of the Catalan Institute of Chemical Research, is also targeting a mid-2026 start for its assembly plant developed in conjunction with the University of Concepción and local engineering firm Enertex. Its electrolysers will have a capacity of between 100 kW and 1 MW.

“[Corfo’s] objective is to meet the demand for the new production plants of different scales that will be installed in the country in the medium and long term in a shorter time,” Benavente adds. “It will allow Chile to play an important role in a first-rate engineering manufacturing sector, generating local linkages associated with the green hydrogen industry.”