ThyssenKrupp Nucera

"If you want to protect the climate, there is no way around green hydrogen," ThyssenKrupp Nucera CEO Werner Ponikwar says. His company specializes in building high-efficiency alkaline water electrolyzers to power steel mills and other fossil-fuel intensive industrial sites, reducing greenhouse gas emissions. In a field crowded with startups, ThyssenKrupp Nucera is jostling to the front as it signs deals with Shell and the Saudi government, among other organizations that see scalable potential in the company's modular electrolyzers, which use electricity to split water and produce carbon-free hydrogen. Historically, alkaline technology has been too inflexible to work well with renewable power sources like wind and solar. But ThyssenKrupp Nucera uses high-tech electrode coatings to make its electrolyzers more adaptable and to reduce each system's footprint by two-thirds. Last year, it grossed €526 million after listing on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange in Germany, where it's based. Since then, the company has made inroads in the U.S., where it received a $50 million Department of Energy grant announced in March.