Powerhouse Energy Group PLC (AIM:PHE, ETR:BT81) said it is looking to expand its "capabilities and activities", following the arrival of its new chief executive.
As part of its final results for the past calendar year and ahead of the publication of a new three-year strategy later this year, the company published a strategic report that included re-stablishing key imperatives and collaboration positions for the near-, mid- and longer-term.
The company reported year-end cash of £9.6mln, having raised a £10mln gross and provided a loan facility to the Protos project of £3.8mln of which £1.15mln had been advanced by the year end.
Total losses were reduced to £1.87mln from £15.83mln the year before, primarily due to a reduction in the impairment of goodwill.
Revenues rose to £0.70mln from £0.1mln thanks to further engineering support works provided to the Protos SPV.
Once the Protos project enters construction, it is currently intended that Powerhouse enters an agreement with the Protos SPV for the provision of owner's engineer services.
“As the dynamic of change is so fast flowing in economies, Powerhouse has embarked on a process to reassess its purpose, its values, its structure, its processes, and its markets,” said chief executive Paul Drennan-Durose, the cleantech veteran who was appointed in January.
“The thrust of focus in 2022 is on the company setting about applying more rigour and scrutiny to delivering the technology and system readiness level of the core technologies it is developing and adopting and ensuring that the technology the company is forming and integrating is process capable.
“This is a critical foundation, necessary for minimising risk and optimising potential when the company rolls-out a full-scale commercial operation.”
To position Powerhouse's DMG technology as a converter of plastic waste to a synthetic gas that can be converted to hydrogen, and to support its growth and scale-up, he said the company has centred its main focus on several key strategic imperatives.
In the area of technology and innovation, there has been growing confidence in the generation of hydrogen at the test unit at Thornton in northwest England, with technological developments to be further supported by the creation of a £1.3mln Global Technology & Innovation Centre, as recently announced.
After delays in developing the first commercial scale application of Powerhouse’s technology at the Protos Energy Park in Cheshire were faced by partner Peel NRE in 2021 and in early 2022, Peel has begun a new competitive tender process that it expects to complete in September.
Planning approval was granted this month for a second UK waste-to-hydrogen facility from Peel NRE’s eleven primary target sites.
A collaboration agreement was signed with development partner Hydrogen Utopia International with the prospect of a plastics to hydrogen project at Konin, Poland.
Powerhouse said it is also exploring an “evolution” of its current business model with respect to partners overseas for future projects and "will consider alternative financing routes for project initiatives and will explore appropriate ways to invest funds in the development of projects internationally".
It said it is prepared to function as developer or as co-developer in key markets, where appropriate, to accelerate progress.