Loa Carbon · Netherlands · Electrolyzer LCOH Face-off
A like-for-like levelized-cost model of Tobe against Terraform, Rivan, and the buyable market, run at your exact operating point: 4,000 hours a year on Dutch spot power at or below €40/MWh, feeding a CO₂-rich methanation loop.
Power price
≤€40/MWh
Run hours
4,000 h/yr
Capacity factor
45.7%
CO₂ supply
Abundant (syngas)
The answer
Under your conditions, Tobe wins at €2.62/kg H₂ — cheaper than Terraform (€3.44), Hysata (€3.18), Chinese alkaline (€3.51), and Western PEM (€4.14). Your instinct is correct: Terraform and Rivan are the wrong bet here.
The reason is the crossover from the last report, now with a number: at €40/MWh you're paying real money for electricity, so the extra 35 kWh/kg that Terraform burns costs €1.40/kg — which swamps its ~€0.58/kg capital saving. Terraform only beats Tobe below ~€17/MWh. You're at more than double that.
Same axis, same conditions. Copper is capital + O&M; teal is electricity.
Terraform's bar is almost entirely electricity — that's the low-efficiency penalty made visible. Western PEM is the opposite failure: too much capital at 45.7% utilization. Tobe is the only one that's low on both.
Levelized cost of hydrogen, €/kg, at €40/MWh · 4,000 h/yr · 8% WACC / 20 yr · 3%/yr O&M.
| Rank | Electrolyzer | Installed | Efficiency | Capital+O&M | Electricity | LCOH |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Tobe WINNER | $600/kW | 45 kWh/kg | €0.82 | €1.80 | €2.62 |
| 2 | Hysata efficiency play | $1,200/kW | 41.5 kWh/kg | €1.52 | €1.66 | €3.18 |
| 3 | Terraform captive | $100/kW* | 80 kWh/kg | €0.24 | €3.20 | €3.44 |
| 4 | Chinese alkaline | $900/kW | 52 kWh/kg | €1.43 | €2.08 | €3.51 |
| 5 | Western PEM | $1,300/kW | 52 kWh/kg | €2.06 | €2.08 | €4.14 |
| — | Rivan not modelable | n/d | "inefficient" | Specs undisclosed. If it mirrors Terraform's low-efficiency profile (~65–80 kWh/kg), it lands in the same penalty zone — €3.3–3.6/kg at €40/MWh. | ||
* Terraform's $100/kW is a stack target and captive to their own methane plant — not a buyable installed system. It's modeled on their own published numbers as an upper-bound-cheap reference; a real installed Terraform-class system would cost more and land worse, not better.
The crossover is a hard number, and you're on the wrong side of it for them.
Crossover Terraform beats Tobe only below €16.6/MWh
Solve for where the two LCOH lines cross: Terraform's tiny capital advantage (€0.58/kg) is overtaken by its electricity penalty (35 extra kWh/kg) once power exceeds ~€16.6/MWh. Terraform's own thesis assumes $10–20/MWh solar — that's their home turf. Your Dutch spot ceiling of €40/MWh is 2.4× above the crossover, squarely in efficiency-wins territory. This is the same principle from the last report, now pinned to your price.
| LCOH €/kg vs power price → | €20 | €30 | €40 | €60 | €80 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tobe | €1.72 | €2.17 | €2.62 | €3.52 | €4.42 |
| Terraform | €1.84 | €2.64 | €3.44 | €5.04 | €6.64 |
| Hysata | €2.35 | €2.76 | €3.18 | €4.01 | €4.84 |
| Chinese alkaline | €2.47 | €2.99 | €3.51 | €4.55 | €5.59 |
| Western PEM | €3.10 | €3.62 | €4.14 | €5.18 | €6.22 |
Tobe is lowest at every price €20 and up. Terraform only sneaks ahead below ~€17/MWh — the very cheap-power corner it was designed for and you don't live in. As power gets more expensive, the low-efficiency options fall away fastest (watch Terraform climb to €6.64 at €80).
It survives its own worst case — which is the number to pressure-test.
Who is Tobe Tobe Energy — Oklahoma City, novel "isothermal electrolysis"
Confirmed real: a membraneless, no-PGM, sub-30 °C cell driven by pulsed/resonant power electronics — genuinely novel, not alkaline or PEM. Reassuring for your model: their own claim is >92% HHV (~42.2 kWh/kg), so your 45 kWh/kg assumption is slightly conservative — this analysis isn't flattering them. Two realities to hold: efficiency/cost figures are self-reported and unaudited, and Tobe is pre-commercial — kW-scale today, first 1 MW system targeted ~2027. So this is a forward bet on a partner, not an off-the-shelf buy — which fits a partnership, but put the timeline in your plan.
Stress test Even at $900/kW installed, Tobe still wins
$600/kW installed is aggressive for a new, cutting-edge electrolyzer — the verified market floor for installed systems is $800–1,200/kW, so treat $600 as a partner-supplied target to validate, not a market fact. Good news: the conclusion is robust. Re-run Tobe at $900/kW installed and it lands at €3.04/kg — still ahead of Terraform (€3.44), Chinese alkaline (€3.51), and PEM (€4.14), and essentially tied with Hysata. Tobe wins on the combination of decent efficiency and moderate cost; it doesn't need the $600 to hold to stay in front.
Everything is transparent and swappable — hand me a different WACC, O&M, or FX and the ranking updates.
Bottom line. At €40/MWh over 4,000 hours, the economics invert the cheap-and-crude thesis: efficiency is now the dominant lever, and Tobe's ~45 kWh/kg at a moderate installed cost beats both the ultra-cheap-inefficient (Terraform/Rivan) and the expensive (PEM). The decision reduces to validating Tobe's two headline numbers as installed/AC-at-plant and confirming its cycling behavior. Terraform and Rivan remain interesting as architectural peers — but at your power price they are not the low-cost hydrogen play.
Model computed in code (verified). Prepared for Dan Wojno · Loa Carbon · illustrative TEA, not a substitute for a full project model.