ITM Power Pockets £86.5m for Chronos Line, Yet Shares Struggle to Find a Bid

UK government approves £46.5M DESNZ grant and £40M Great British Energy equity for ITM Power's Sheffield gigawatt-scale electrolyser factory; stock remains flat as market eyes execution.

The formal green light for ITM Power’s long-awaited funding package should have been a moment of celebration. The UK government has now officially approved both a £46.5 million grant from the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero and a £40 million equity investment from state?owned Great British Energy, unlocking the £86.5 million needed to build a gigawatt?scale electrolyser factory in Sheffield. Yet the company’s stock has barely budged, with shares changing hands at around €1.38 – barely above the €1.36 level that marked a 0.8% decline on the day the approval was confirmed. The muted reaction belies the scale of the deal and points to a market that has already moved on from the funding saga to the harder question of execution.

The investment from Great British Energy is particularly noteworthy: it marks the first time the state vehicle has taken a direct equity stake in a hydrogen technology company, positioning ITM Power at the centre of the UK’s nascent hydrogen economy. Together with the DESNZ grant – first trailed in April but only now formally cleared by the Competition and Markets Authority – the money will finance a fully automated production line for the company’s next?generation ‘Chronos’ electrolyser stack. The line will be housed at the existing Bessemer Park site and will incorporate specialised electrode?welding equipment, catalyst?coated membrane production, clean?room environments and modular test rigs. Annual capacity is targeted at 1 gigawatt, a step?change from the current Trident line whose learnings the Chronos design explicitly leverages.

CEO Dennis Schulz has been at pains to stress that the new line does not start from scratch. The Chronos platform builds on proven Trident manufacturing processes, which the company argues lowers the execution risk that has historically dogged its projects. That reassurance matters because ITM Power’s financial position remains a work in progress. Operating losses persist, free cash flow is negative, and the balance sheet is backed by a relatively low debt level. However, the latest funding round substantially strengthens the cash pile – before the injection, management already guided for a year?end cash balance of £170?175 million. The £86.5 million now locked in adds a further cushion, giving the company runway to complete the factory ramp?up without having to tap equity markets again in the near term.

The improved financial visibility is underpinned by a broader operational turnaround. ITM Power raised its revenue guidance for the current financial year to £40?43 million, citing better project execution, and of the £152 million order book roughly 71% is now classified as profitable – a stark contrast to the loss?making legacy contracts that weighed on the business in previous years. Large?scale projects such as the 200?megawatt RWE plant in Lingen, Germany, also underscore the growing shift from prototype to industrial delivery. Yet for all the progress, analysts remain split on what the stock is worth. Berenberg has raised its price target from 110p to 200p, and Morgan Stanley has upgraded the shares, but other houses stay cautious, pointing to the execution risk embedded in the Chronos ramp?up and the uncertain timing of sustained profitability.

Technically, the stock is caught between bullish and bearish signals. At €1.38, it sits comfortably above its 200?day moving average of €1.07, a sign that the longer?term uptrend – year?to?date gains of roughly 88% and a 12?month advance of over 90% – remains intact. Yet the shares trade nearly 21% below the 50?day average of €1.72, while the 14?day RSI of 42.2 is neutral and the 30?day annualised volatility stands above 106%. The 52?week high of €2.58, struck on 29 May, now looks distant; the stock has lost almost half its value from that peak. The seven?day losing streak that preceded the funding confirmation suggests the market had fully priced the grant approval weeks ago.

With the regulatory hurdle cleared, the focus now shifts to factory construction and the first Chronos output. The next major catalyst is the annual report, due in the third calendar quarter of 2026, which will be accompanied by production?ramp updates from Sheffield. Until concrete manufacturing numbers materialise, the shares are likely to remain volatile and driven more by sentiment shifts than by the funding news itself. ITM Power has the capital and the government backing to build its gigawatt?scale line – but proving it can deliver on time and on budget will determine whether the stock can reclaim its lost altitude.