ITM Power: A £86.5M State Backing and a Protium Deal — Yet the Stock Remains 28% Off Its Peak

ITM Power shares fell 19% in a week but retail buys hit 63%. Government £40M stake and Protium partnership bolster long-term hydrogen prospects.

The contradiction is stark. ITM Power’s shares lost nearly 19% in seven days, tumbling to €1.86 on Friday with a 5.5% daily drop — yet on the busiest trading platforms, roughly 63% of morning orders were buys. Retail investors piled in even as institutional sentiment appeared to sour, a divergence that says more about the company’s long-term trajectory than its short-term price action.

Two major developments underpinned the week’s newsflow. The first came from Great British Energy, the state-backed energy group, which invested £40 million for a 10.4% stake in the Sheffield-based electrolyser manufacturer. That equity injection sits inside a broader £86.5 million government package: the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero is also providing a £46.5 million grant to retool ITM Power’s factory from manual assembly to fully automated production. Analysts see the grant as a significant de-risking of the company’s manufacturing roadmap.

The second catalyst was a strategic partnership with Protium Green Solutions, announced on 3 June. The two companies will jointly develop, finance and operate industrial green hydrogen plants in Britain, starting with the 15?megawatt Cromarty project in the Scottish Highlands. Once running at full capacity, the facility is expected to produce roughly seven tonnes of green hydrogen per day. Crucially, the agreement is a framework rather than a binding offtake contract — financial terms remain unspecified, and the final operating model (ITM Power’s own Hydropulse operator model versus a direct sale of electrolysers to Protium) has yet to be chosen. A final investment decision is pencilled in for December 2026.

That timeline places Cromarty alongside a more immediate technological milestone: the Chronos electrolyser platform. Chronos units deliver 2.5 megawatts apiece — roughly three times the power of the previous generation — while cutting capital costs by 40% and shrinking the physical footprint by 50%. ITM Power is building a dedicated automated production line in Sheffield with a targeted annual capacity of one gigawatt. The company’s progress on the Chronos front was bolstered by the REFHYNE?II project, a 100?megawatt PEM electrolyser plant for Shell in Germany, which recently took home an award at the World Hydrogen Awards 2026.

Despite these positive developments, the share price has retreated sharply from its 52?week high of €2.58, hit on 29 May. The stock now sits roughly 28% below that peak, having more than tripled from a February low of €0.65. The relative strength index has cooled to 48, signalling that the earlier overbought condition has dissipated, while the annualised 30?day volatility remains above 95% — a reminder of how aggressively the market shuttles the stock in both directions.

The most concrete financial anchor remains the revenue guidance issued in February. ITM Power expects turnover in fiscal 2026 of between £40 million and £43 million, a raise from the earlier £35?£40 million range, driven by progress on existing projects and the application of percentage?of?completion accounting. The Protium partnership brought no change to that outlook, and management explicitly refrained from updating the forecast.

Until the Cromarty final investment decision lands in December 2026 — and until the automated gigawatt line receives its own go?ahead — the market appears to be drawing a firm line between strategic intent and booked revenue. The flurry of buyer orders on the way down suggests that many retail participants are betting on the long?term hydrogen story, yet the price action also shows that a growing number of institutions want to see real orders and margin progress before they pay up for the next leg of the rally.