Reflections on a Defining Year
When I joined Utility Global in February 2025, I did so with conviction – conviction that Utility’s proven technology platform could practically help major industrial sectors achieve true economic industrial decarbonization. Together, our team set about strengthening an organization that could execute with the rigor and credibility that hard-to-abate industry demands while maintaining a pace and flexibility that technology commercialization requires.
Reflecting on the past year, with gratitude, we have been rewarded with a successful transition from conviction in a proven technology to an expanding commercialization phase with customers, partners and investors alongside who share in our conviction and a collective vision.
2025 was the year our trajectory became unmistakable.
Speed to Scale
Heavy industry does not need “moonshots”. It needs real solutions that are ready now, integrate into existing assets, operate 24/7, and decarbonize without compromising economics, footprint or uptime.
In 2025, Utility announced its first commercial projects, and that mattered, not because they were symbolic, but because they are real.
With ArcelorMittal in Brazil, we advanced a commercial project at the Juiz de Fora steel plant, working directly with the type of off gas that produces 70% of steel globally (blast furnace gas) – one of the most demanding environments in heavy industry. Utility forged our H2Gen technology in a 3,000+ hour blast furnace integrated demonstration in 2024, proving it can deliver in one of the harshest environments in heavy industry.
With Maas Energy Works in California, we demonstrated how our platform can integrate directly into agricultural and waste infrastructure, turning biogenic waste gas streams into energy for emission-free mobility with deeply carbon-negative hydrogen for existing demand at a cost structure that out-competes existing hydrogen supply to the mobility market.
These projects were never intended to stand alone. They anchor a deep and growing pipeline of commercial projects now in development globally across steel, refining, chemicals, biogas and other hard-to-abate sectors worldwide.
Frontier Houston: Proving Ground for Industrial Scale
One of our most important technical milestones of 2025 came quietly.
In October 2025, we brought Frontier Houston online, our latest reactor technology and 24/7 industrial test bed. Frontier Houston is not just a showcase. It is a working facility designed for continuous operation for technology advancement and deployment under real operating conditions.
It allows customers, partners, and regulators to see how our systems perform at industrial conditions and requirements, before deployment, not after. For us, Frontier Houston represents confidence at scale and a reduction of execution risk across our entire commercial portfolio.
Planting Roots in Fertile Soil
In parallel, we made deliberate progress in markets that demand commercial and technology innovation to build a scalable and resilient business.
In South Korea, where we have planted firm roots, we teamed up with Seongnam City to develop a demonstration and certification project in one of the world’s most exciting hydrogen ecosystems. Frontier Korea will see our H2Gen® produce hydrogen from water, by harnessing the electrochemical energy in biogas from Seongnam’s municipal wastewater treatment facility. This fuel-cell grade hydrogen will be delivered to an existing hydrogen refuelling station currently fuelling cars, buses, and trucks – real low carbon hydrogen fuelling mobility and certifying H2Gen for South Korea’s incentive programs across all end markets at the same time.
We also announced a Pre-FEED study agreement with Hanwha Corporation’s Engineering & Construction Division, focused on wastewater and biogas applications, and built a consortium of execution partners anchored by Kunhwa Engineering, Samsung and GH.
Built for Scale
Late in the year, we announced our third-party manufacturing agreement with Kyocera International. This partnership greatly expands our ability to produce the core of our technology, our proprietary cells, at scale and brings world-class industrial manufacturing discipline into Utility.
Scaling manufacturing is a core challenge companies at our stage face, with partnerships, modularity and tight integration with commercial project timelines as critical success factors. With Kyocera, we have a global leader with over six decades of ceramics experience driving alongside Utility, bringing those factors to life.
Leadership, Execution, and Team
As our commercial footprint expanded, so did our responsibility to build a company capable of delivering on our mission. I joined an incredible team, which we worked to strengthen further as we launched into commercialization at scale.
I’m deeply grateful to work alongside Derek Kramer, our Chief Operating Officer who came onboard in mid-2025, whose operational rigor ensures that scale never comes at the expense of reliability or delivery discipline. His experience across his tenure, including at Archaea during its highly successful commercialization phase, has already brought significant benefits to our leadership team and Operations functions.
I’m equally grateful for our rapidly growing world-class team: a multi-talented, passionate, resilient and innovative crew who execute with humility and intensity, and for world-class investors such as Ara Partners, OPG, ArcelorMittal, Aramco, Samsung and many others, who understand that building enduring industrial decarbonization companies takes discipline and dedication, not hype.
Our commercial maturation has also benefitted greatly from the impact of our Board Advisors, including Dr. Henrik Adam, Eric Duchesne, and Tetsuya Shioda, who bring global Executive perspectives and relationships forged in the industries we serve.
And finally, I’m grateful to our industry-leading partners and customers, companies willing to deploy, not just discuss; to see opportunity, not just pilot; and to hold us to the standards that matter to solve their hardest decarbonization challenges.
Perspective, Not Distraction
Being named among TIME’s Top GreenTech Companies of 2025 was an honor. But recognition was never the objective. Achieving technology, operational and commercial milestones, with customers advancing projects – those are the signals we value.
Execution will always stay front and center.
What 2025 Made Clear
By year-end, the pattern was undeniable:
- Unparalleled commercial traction recognized by investors
- Industrial systems performing at full operating map
- Manufacturing scaled with global partners
- Certification underway in leading hydrogen markets
Utility is not asking industry to change how it operates. We are meeting industry now and here, and together journeying where it wants to be, making economic industrial decarbonization finally practical.
Looking Ahead
2025 laid the foundation. What comes next accelerates it.
2026 will see Utility continuing to focus on people, systems, scale, and results. Commercial delivery driving Operations, Manufacturing and Organizational expansion, smartly. Execution is paramount, nimbly in concert with our customers and partners.
Because economic industrial decarbonization is needed now, we look forward to a year of focused acceleration to scale.