Interview with Ceres Power's Nick Lawrence

When The Engineer last caught up with Ceres Power, the company had just been awarded the MacRobert Award, one of engineering’s most prestigious prizes. Spun out of Imperial College in 2001, Ceres had already been making waves for several years, its SteelCell solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) technology converting hydrogen and hydrocarbons into electricity. However, it was the company’s breakthrough in reversing that process – enabling SteelCell to generate hydrogen via electrolysis – that finally helped it land the Royal Academy’s highest honour.

At the time, MacRobert panel chair Professor Sir Richard Friend hailed it as “a huge game changer for hydrogen generation”, saying the conversion losses were the lowest he had ever seen. In the interim, the breakthrough has helped Ceres ramp up commercial activity, licensing its technology wider than ever before.  

“2024 was a real bumper year in terms of our signing licence agreements,” Nick Lawrence, chief product officer at Ceres, told The Engineer. “We signed a dual licence agreement with Delta Electronics in Taiwan, our first dual licence with fuel cell and electrolysis.