Our story

Hydrolux was born from a long reflection on a concrete solution in order to decarbonize the transport industry. Friedrich, being a big fan of cars and the environment, had always had an internal conflict between his two passions. It was in 2016, when he entered the École de technologie supérieure in Montréal, that he began to think on what’s the best way to harmonize these two passions. It was during the first half of 2019 that the Hydrolux founding team was formed when Julien and Nicolas cofounded Hydrolux with Friedrich. 

The field of renewable energy and decarbonization has always been of interest to Julien. In the past, he worked in data analysis for projects aimed at reducing electricity consumption. He was also involved in the McGill electric formula team where he learned deeply about electric vehicles. The technical knowledge he has acquired will be used in this large-scale project. Leadership roles are not out of the ordinary for Julien either. In his spare time, he served as a sailing head coach and vice president of his university team at McGill, where he graduated in mechanical engineering. 

Nicolas has always loved everything related to the means of transport. His passion for cars has allowed him to build a remarkable knowledge base that makes him an interesting source of knowledge at various levels. This interest led him to question the potential of reducing passenger vehicle pollution. It was through his work for the financial consulting firm Edward Jones that he decided to pursue a finance education at Concordia. 

However, such a big project does not come true with just three co-founders. That’s why we sought additional talent to complement our team ranging from engineering to marketing and sales. We are also very happy to be supervised by our amazing board of advisors. In short, a strong team to solve an important problem. 

After several interviews with potential partners for either a road network, a marine network, and then for an industrial network, we realized that the best way to start is to tackle a niche market that absolutely needs a solution as soon as possible. This is why we are attacking the warehouse market in order to supply them with hydrogen for their forklifts; but our vision has no limit! 

We are changing the way that hydrogen is produced and distributed. Currently, nearly all hydrogen (97%) is produced using steam methane reforming (SMR) which generates lots of GHGs. More importantly, the transportation of the hydrogen is highly inefficient with large production sites far away from the end users resulting in a prohibitively expensive hydrogen cost. We want to offer cheap, clean and reliable hydrogen for applications where current battery technology is not well suited such as forklifts and trucking.

We are changing the way that hydrogen is produced and distributed. 

Currently, nearly all hydrogen (97%) is produced using steam methane reforming (SMR) which generates lots of GHGs¹. More importantly, the transportation of hydrogen is highly inefficient considering large production sites are often very far away from the end-users which results in a prohibitively expensive hydrogen cost. At Hydrolux, we want to offer cheap, clean, and reliable hydrogen for applications where current battery technology is not well suited such as for forklifts and trucks. 

We will produce hydrogen using electrolysis from green electricity. Using our artificial intelligence and combining it to a decentralized production model, we can offer cheap and clean fuel for our customers. Optimizing and predicting our delivery process is at the heart of our value proposition. Decentralizing our production offers many advantages beyond increased efficiency, as we are better protected from a single point of failure and can cover a larger territory with similar capital costs.