On Wednesday, Metacon announced that its wholly-owned Greek subsidiary, Metacon SA, was awarded public EU funding for the AMEL research and development project. This project aims to advance Anion Exchange Membrane (AEM) water electrolysis technology. While the project expands the company's R&D activities into a complementary electrolysis technology, we consider the immediate financial impact to be modest. Metacon's total project budget amounts to 0.1 MEUR, of which 80% is covered by public funding over a 24-month period. The announcement does not lead to any immediate changes to our estimates.

Under the project, Metacon will contribute to developing and optimizing AEM-based electrolyzer technology, focusing on catalysts that do not depend on critical raw materials or precious metals, improved electrode designs, and the creation of a 0.5 kW stack and test unit. In our view, participating in this publicly funded R&D project is a logical way for Metacon to broaden its technological expertise alongside its existing activities in pressurized alkaline and PEM electrolysis. However, we continue to view commercializing its current large-scale alkaline offering and converting its existing sales pipeline into firm orders as the primary catalysts for the investment case.