Delivery and installation expected in the first quarter of 2025
Padova, November 4, 2024 – First contract for Hybitat, the joint venture participated by the SIT Group launched to develop a new and innovative hydrogen generation and storage system for residential use. In advance of development plans, Hybitat has in fact recently concluded the sale of a first storage system with a capacity of 200 kWh of energy that will be installed in the first quarter of 2025 in a private residence in a prestigious eighteenth-century architectural context.
Hybitat is a “Long Duration Energy Storage” system capable of storing the electrical energy of photovoltaic panels in the form of hydrogen obtained by electrolysis of water and returning it to the user, depending on peaks in energy needs, thanks to an electrochemical process of generation without combustion. The system can be used in homes, consists of an indoor unit (the main unit), and an external one (the storage unit), and is able to optimize the management of electricity produced by photovoltaics. In particular, the Hybitat system has the possibility of storing in the form of hydrogen the excess electricity generated in summer by photovoltaic panels to meet winter energy needs. The project, launched in 2023, was created to provide a residential solution to the need to balance renewable electricity generation, which is discontinuous in nature, with energy demand through an innovative energy storage system in the form of hydrogen. The storage technology proposed by Hybitat is based on metal hydrides that allow hydrogen to be stored safely, reversibly and in high density at temperatures and pressures close to ambient temperatures. SIT wanted to become a pioneer in this field in order to equip homes, also through these methods, with the clean energy necessary for the operation of heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems, reducing CO2 emissions.
Tomaso Valdinoci, Chief Strategy and Product Officer of SIT, stated: “The energy sector is constantly evolving and so are solutions for the generation and storage of clean energy. Despite the challenging and unstable regulatory framework, we believe that renewable energy storage systems will be a key element in achieving the decarbonisation goals that Europe in particular has set itself. This is why we have developed Hybitat, which combines the technical skills of SIT’s R&D to safely manage technologies that use gas, and in particular hydrogen, in residential contexts, and that of e-Novia in software development, necessary to make the accumulator communicate with the smart home“.
