Electrochaea's EIC Accelerator E-Methane Plant Never Got Built

Electrochaea, a company in Planegg near Munich, makes methane with microbes. A strain of archaea, single-celled organisms first selected at the University of Chicago, eats hydrogen from electrolysers and carbon dioxide from biogas plants or industry and gives off methane clean enough to be fed into the natural gas grid, according to the company. In the EIC Accelerator pilot's Green Deal round of 19 May 2020, the European Commission selected it for blended finance, as the list of selected companies shows. The grant, €2,485,000 for a €3,550,000 project called Echaea, was to take its process from 1 MW demonstration plants to a 10 MWe standard plant, and EIC equity was to pay for building the first one at Roslev in Denmark, according to CORDIS.

The design was finished. The plant was not built. At the end of April 2026, after a financing round failed, Electrochaea filed for insolvency, and on 3 August 2026 the insolvency administrator, Michael Jaffé, announced that Hitachi had bought its worldwide patent portfolio, according to the administrator's press release and IT BOLTWISE.

Where Electrochaea Stands Now

Electrochaea is in insolvency proceedings. The Munich commercial register shows that the local court issued a decision on the company's assets on 27 April 2026, under case number 1508 IN 1517/26, and recorded the company as in liquidation on 8 July 2026, according to North Data. The administrator's release says the company had been loss-making since it was founded, depended on fresh capital to keep operating, and never reached cost-covering production at industrial scale, partly because of delays in expanding its plants. A summary published with the release on WebDisclosure says the administrator considers the technology not yet proven in industrial production and in need of further investment. The price Hitachi paid has not been disclosed.

Hitachi confirmed the deal on 28 August 2026. It said it had acquired patent rights in Germany and abroad, copyrighted works and technical documents relating to biomethanation, and that it would continue demonstration work in Japan, according to its press release. What became of the staff and of the Danish project company has not been published.

The Technology: Archaea Instead of a Catalyst Bed

Most power-to-methane plants use the Sabatier reaction, in which hydrogen and CO2 react over a nickel catalyst at high temperature. Electrochaea does the same chemistry biologically: its archaea sit in a pressurised bioreactor and convert hydrogen and CO2 into methane at mild conditions, with what the company describes as high tolerance to contaminants in the CO2 stream and no intermediate products, according to its own description. The CORDIS project report adds that the process converts more than 97% of the carbon fed into it. That figure comes from the company and could not be checked independently.

The pitch to the EIC was storage. Surplus wind and solar power becomes hydrogen, the hydrogen becomes methane, and the methane goes into the existing gas grid and its storage. A 10 MW plant, the company said, would convert 5,700 tonnes of CO2 a year into 2.8 million Nm3 of e-methane, enough to heat 2,400 homes, according to CORDIS.

What the EIC Award Promised, and What the Record Shows

Echaea ran from 1 November 2020 to 30 September 2023 under the Green Deal topic of the EIC Accelerator pilot. Electrochaea's Danish affiliate, Electrochaea DK ApS, took part as a linked third party and received €359,843.75 of the grant; the Commission's list names only Electrochaea GmbH. The plan had two stages: the grant would "de-risk" the process to market readiness, and the company would "subsequently" build a full 10 MWe commercial demonstration plant at Roslev "funded by the EIC equity facility", according to CORDIS. The objective also cited expressions of interest for 12 such plants.

The periodic report lists four expected results: basic and detailed engineering for a standard 10 MWe plant, lower capital and operating costs, a market strategy for the key EU markets, and the first commercial project in the EU. It records that basic engineering was completed with ECM Kraftanlagen in Munich, that nutrient costs were cut with a new formulation, that a country-by-country market ranking was drawn up, and that permitting for Roslev had begun with Skive Municipality. In October 2022 Solarserver reported that Electrochaea had finished the engineering of its first standardised 10 MW plant. In August 2024 the company announced that it had "successfully completed" the programme and scaled up to "an archetype design of 10 MWe". That release dates the selection to 2021; the Commission's list and CORDIS place it in May 2020.

1. Basic engineering for a 10 MWe standard plantDeliveredCompleted with ECM Kraftanlagen, per the CORDIS report; design announced in October 2022.
2. Lower CAPEX and OPEXUnverifiedClaimed by the company; no cost figures published.
3. EU market strategyDeliveredCountry ranking and four candidate sites, per CORDIS.
4. First commercial project in the EU (Roslev)Not deliveredProduction was due in 2026; no start announced before the insolvency.
5. 10 MWe plant built with EIC equityNot deliveredNo construction or commissioning announced by the company or third parties.

On time against the grant, behind against the plan. The engineering, the cost work and the market study fit the 35-month project. The plant that the grant was meant to prepare for, and that the equity was meant to pay for, did not follow.

The Plant in Roslev

Roslev was not a new idea. In December 2023 Biocat Roslev ApS, a company controlled by Electrochaea and set up in 2018, signed a contract with the Danish Energy Agency for a subsidy of up to DKK 71 million (€9.5 million) for hydrogen production. Wind turbines near Rybjerg Biogas were to supply the power and the biogas plant the CO2. Doris Hafenbradl said the project was "close to its completion" and that production of hydrogen and e-methane would start in 2026, according to the company's press release. The company repeated the €9.5 million figure in its August 2024 release, which says it made "significant overall progress in the approval process" but does not report construction. Electrochaea's news page carries no later update on Roslev, and no start of production was announced before the April 2026 filing.

Meanwhile the company sold one of the plants it already had. In April 2024 it sold a BioCat bioreactor, described as the world's largest power-to-gas plant based on biological methanation, to the Danish CO2 specialist Again A/S for research and development, according to European Biotechnology. The price was not disclosed.

What Electrochaea Achieved After the Award

The money came quickly. In January 2022 the EIC Fund invested €14.9 million, completing a €36 million Series D led by the energy technology company Baker Hughes, with MVP, Storengy (an ENGIE subsidiary), btov, KfW, Energie 360°, Caliza and Focus First taking part again, according to Munich Startup and Bioökonomie.de, which reported it as the largest round worldwide for a power-to-methane company. The equity figure differs slightly by source: €14.9 million in those reports, €14.975 million in the company's 2024 release, and "€15 million" in a 2020 report by Renewable Carbon.

Electrochaea is not on the European Innovation Council's list of EIC Fund invested companies: a search of all 319 entries on pages 0 to 15 on 15 October 2026 found no match, although the EIC Fund's investment was announced in 2022. The list does not say whether insolvent holdings are removed.

Commercial deals took the form of licences and designs. In November 2024 Electrochaea and Hitachi signed a five-year technology transfer and licensing agreement for Japan's first biomethanation plant, with commissioning targeted in 2027, according to Electrochaea; Hitachi dates the licence to November 2024 as well in its 2026 release. In February 2025 Electrochaea and Baker Hughes finished a basic engineering design package for plants of 3,750 Nm3 of methane an hour fed by a 75 MWe electrolyser, with feasibility studies "underway" for prospective clients, according to the company. None of those clients was named, and no plant order was announced.

Electrochaea also worked in other EU projects. In the Horizon 2020 project STORE&GO, which ran from March 2016 to February 2020 to demonstrate power-to-gas storage in Germany, Switzerland and Italy, it received a net EU contribution of €2,041,270.

What Cannot Be Checked

Why Europe Should Care

The EU wants more renewable gas. Its REPowerEU plan of May 2022 calls for scaling up biomethane production by 2030, and member states have reported plans for 26 billion cubic metres a year by then. The revised Renewable Energy Directive sets a binding 42.5% renewable share for 2030 and new binding targets for renewable fuels of non-biological origin in sectors that are hard to electrify. E-methane made from hydrogen and biogenic CO2, as planned at Roslev, was meant to count towards that category, the company said.

Electrochaea's end means a European technology that the EIC funded twice, through a grant and through equity, now belongs to a Japanese group that plans to develop it in Japan. Hitachi's 2026 release names demonstration projects in Japan and a target for 2030.

The Verdict

Electrochaea, its insolvency administrator and the EIC have not been asked for comment for this article. It is based entirely on public records, company statements and EU project data, linked throughout.