Most power generation technologies are built to do one thing well. Estonian company Elcogen have designed solid oxide cells capable of dual-mode operation: power generation and hydrogen production within the same unit.
Operating in fuel cell mode, their cells can generate electricity with higher efficiency than combustion engines and zero emissions when fueled by pure hydrogen. Operated in reverse mode, the same cell can electrolyze water into hydrogen.
A member of the EIC Scaling Club’s Clean Fuels & Hydrogen group, Elcogen has already drawn interest from industry leaders like HD Hyundai and Baker Hughes. Beyond these key partnerships, the company is also addressing Europe’s strategic need for domestic, clean energy technology.
Elcogen was founded in 2001 by Enn Õunpuu, who set out to develop solid oxide fuel cell technology as a high-efficiency alternative to combustion-based power generation.
Elcogen developed its technology in close collaboration with the University of Tartu and Estonia’s National Institute of Chemical Physics and Biophysics. In fact, Estonia’s scientific heritage in electrochemistry can be traced back to Wilhelm Ostwald, the Nobel Prize-winning (in 1909) chemist who studied at the University of Tartu and helped lay the foundations of the field.
It took close to a decade of work before the company reached its first real commercial milestone. In 2010, Elcogen started up its first solid oxide cell pilot production line and shipped its first deliveries to customers.
At the heart of Elcogen’s technology is elcoCell, a planar solid oxide cell featuring an ultra-thin ceramic electrolyte. This design allows the cell to operate at lower temperatures (600–750°C compared to the industry standard 750–900°C), which reduces material stress and extends system lifespan.
When running in a fuel cell mode, elcoCell converts hydrogen or hydrogen-containing fuels (such as natural gas, ammonia or biofuel) directly into electricity and heat, reaching over 75% efficiency at the stack level.
Run in reverse, as a solid oxide electrolyser, the same cell can split steam into hydrogen and oxygen. It can also run reversibly (rSOC), switching between generating power and producing hydrogen.
Notably, this feature allows customers to install a single system that performs both functions, cutting the cost of a power-to-hydrogen-to-power loop compared to a standard two-asset setup.
Elcogen’s cells, stacks, and modules can be used for gas-to-power, green hydrogen, Power-to-X, and maritime applications, with the company also offering engineering support for system integration.
Enn Õunpuu founded Elcogen in 2001 and remains CEO today. He envisions an energy transition solved entirely by the sun, wind, and water, with fuel cells converting surplus renewable electricity into hydrogen that can be stored and used to power everything from portable devices to entire buildings.
COO Stefano Piscitelli brings over 20 years of industrial and infrastructure experience, including a role at Northvolt where he helped deliver Europe's first homegrown lithium-ion gigafactory.
CTO Jan Gustav Grolig spent over 15 years developing fuel cells and electrolysers at Hexis AG and Stargate Hydrogen before joining Elcogen.
Board Chair Christopher Nash, an experienced chairman across the energy and environment sectors, sits alongside board representatives from strategic investors HD Hyundai and Baker Hughes.
Elcogen has raised more than €190 million since 2022. South Korea’s HD Hyundai, through its Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering unit, invested €45 million in 2023 after a year of testing Elcogen’s technology, aiming to build solid oxide fuel cell systems for marine propulsion and stationary power.
Energy technology group Baker Hughes and investment firm Mirae followed with a further €31 million, while the European Innovation Fund committed an additional €25 million toward the company’s flagship manufacturing project, on top of a separate €24.9 million EU grant to scale hydrogen and fuel cell production.
That capital built ELCO I, a 14,000 m² factory on the outskirts of Tallinn that opened in September 2025, raising Elcogen’s production capacity from to 360 MW and making it one of Europe’s largest manufacturers of solid oxide technology.
“This new facility is built for scale, speed, and global impact”, Õunpuu said at the launch.
Along the way, Elcogen successfully validated its technology through a 2,000-hour electrolyser test with Finnish partner Convion, signed a contract to advance electrolyser commercialisation with France’s Genvia, and partnered with TNO and AVL on megawatt-scale electrolyser stacks.
These feats earned Elcogen a spot on the Global Cleantech 100 and TIME’s list of the World’s Top GreenTech Companies.
Elcogen joined the EIC Scaling Club in October 2024 as part of its Clean Fuels & Hydrogen market group. Elcogen’s mission to develop and domestically produce more energy-efficient fuel cells aligns with the EU’s broader agenda for competitiveness and energy security.
In June 2026, European Commission Executive Vice President Teresa Ribera visited the ELCO I factory. “If Europe is serious about building a competitive hydrogen economy, it must also invest in the technologies that make it possible”, Õunpuu said during the visit, arguing that most global manufacturing capacity for key hydrogen technologies currently sits outside Europe.
As Elcogen continues to push the industry forward, the EIC Scaling Club’s network can provide the support the company needs to further scale its technology.
The EIC Scaling Club is a curated community where 120+ European deep tech scale-ups with the potential to build world-class businesses and solve major global challenges come together with investors, corporate innovators and other industry stakeholders to spur growth.
The top 120+ European deep tech companies will be carefully selected from a pool of high-growth scale-ups that have benefitted from EIC financial schemes, other European and national innovation programmes, and beyond.
The EIC Scaling Club is an EIC-funded initiative run in partnership by Tech Tour, Bpifrance (EuroQuity), Hello Tomorrow, Tech.eu (Webrazzi), EurA and IESE Business School.
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