Turn2X's Spanish Plant Ships Certified E-Methane to the German Grid

The most elegant climate solutions are the ones that don't ask the world to rebuild itself. A Munich startup called Turn2X is betting on that principle, turning renewable electricity and captured carbon dioxide into a molecule that already has a home: methane. Its synthetic natural gas, or e-methane, is chemically identical to the fossil version, meaning it can slip into Europe's vast network of pipelines and storage tanks without asking a single steel mill or power plant to change a valve [Perplexity Sonar Pro Brief].

The modular drop-in fuel

Turn2X's process is a chemical shuffle. It uses excess renewable power to split water into green hydrogen. That hydrogen is then combined with biogenic CO2,captured from sources like biogas plants,in a proprietary, modular methanation reactor [Hyfilgreen]. The output is certified renewable natural gas. The company's first commercial plant, in Miajadas, Spain, began operating in 2025 and has already sold its full output, with the first certified delivery occurring in October 2026 [First Momentum Ventures] [pv magazine Global, October 2026]. The strategic advantage is blunt: it's a drop-in fuel. For industrial offtakers and gas traders, it's not a new energy vector like pure hydrogen that requires a parallel, multi-trillion-euro infrastructure buildout. It's just gas, without the geologic carbon [First Momentum Ventures].

Building a pipeline with Siemens

The company is not building bespoke factories for each site. Its bet is on modular, repeatable plants that can be deployed near sources of renewable power and CO2. To scale this, it has brought in a heavyweight industrial partner. Siemens is a preferred technology supplier, providing automation and process optimization systems from its Siemens Xcelerator portfolio to help standardize and control the methanation process [Siemens and TURN2X join forces to scale up green energy production, May 2025]. The partnership is a signal that Turn2X is thinking in terms of industrial roll-out, not just pilot science. This scaling ambition is reflected in its reported project pipeline of 2.7 GW and signed offtake agreements worth more than €1 billion [Turn2X Careers Page, October 2026] [First Momentum Ventures].

Founder	Role	Background Note
Philip Kessler	CEO & Co-Founder	Originated the idea after a climate-focused sabbatical in Africa [EU-Startups, June 2023].
Dr. Dominik Schollenberger	CTO & Co-Founder	Met co-founders at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) [EU-Startups, June 2023].
Benedikt Stolz	COO & Co-Founder	KIT alumnus and Harvard Business School graduate [EU-Startups, June 2023] [Benedikt Stolz - TURN2X

The recent €20 million Series A, led by Antwerpen Ventures in October 2026, will finance more commercial plants in Spain and other markets, with a stated goal of driving down production costs [Munich Startup, October 2026]. Notably, lead investor Florian Antwerpen has joined the company to run European project development, a move that suggests the capital is as much about operational horsepower as it is about cash [First Momentum Ventures].

The efficiency equation

For all its elegance, the e-methane path faces a fundamental physics challenge: efficiency. The process of converting electricity to hydrogen and then to methane involves multiple energy conversion steps, each with losses. The round-trip efficiency,electricity in, usable gas energy out,is a critical number that will determine its ultimate cost and carbon abatement value. The company will need to demonstrate that its patented catalyst and partnership with Siemens can push this efficiency high enough to compete, not just with fossil gas, but with direct electrification and green hydrogen alternatives. The market it must ultimately beat is not other startups, but the entrenched incumbent: cheap, geopolitically fraught, fossil-derived natural gas imported via pipeline and LNG tanker.

A back-of-the-envelope check puts the scale in perspective. The company's 2.7 GW project pipeline, if fully realized, could produce roughly 1.5 billion cubic meters of e-methane annually (assuming a 50% capacity factor and standard conversion efficiencies). That's a meaningful volume, but it's a single-digit percentage of Germany's annual gas consumption. Hitting their reported ambition of capturing 10% of the natural gas market by 2030 [Taner Yilmaz - Siemens | LinkedIn] would require an order-of-magnitude larger build-out. The bet, then, is that their modular approach can achieve the necessary cost reductions and deployment speed. For now, the Miajadas plant is a proof point. The next dozen will be the proof of economics.

Sources

1. [EU-Startups, June 2023] Munich-based Turn2X secures €4.3 million to expand production of renewable natural gas across Europe | https://www.eu-startups.com/2023/06/munich-based-turn2x-secures-e4-3-million-to-expand-production-of-renewable-natural-gas-across-europe/
2. [First Momentum Ventures] Pipeline-ready gas from renewables made in Europe | https://www.firstmomentum.vc/insights/pipeline-ready-gas-from-renewables-made-in-europe
3. [Munich Startup, October 2026] Munich E-Methane Startup Turn2x Secures €20 Million for Expansion | https://www.munich-startup.de/en/news/munich-e-methane-startup-turn2x-secures-e20-million-for-expansion
4. [Turn2X Careers Page, October 2026] Turn2X Job Postings | https://turn2x.jobs.personio.com/
5. [Siemens and TURN2X join forces to scale up green energy production, May 2025] Siemens and TURN2X join forces to scale up green energy production | https://press.siemens.com/global/en/pressrelease/siemens-and-turn2x-join-forces-scale-green-energy-production
6. [pv magazine Global, October 2026] First delivery of fully RfnbO certified e-methane | https://www.pv-magazine.com/2026/10/06/first-delivery-of-fully-rfnbo-certified-e-methane/
7. [Hyfilgreen] Turn2X utilizes a patented catalyst reactor | https://hyfilgreen.com/turn2x-utilizes-a-patented-catalyst-reactor-solution-to-convert-green-hydrogen-and-biogenic-carbon-dioxide-into-green-methane/
8. [Taner Yilmaz - Siemens | LinkedIn] LinkedIn post on Turn2X market ambition | https://www.linkedin.com/in/taner-yilmaz-400b9829/
9. [Benedikt Stolz - TURN2X | LinkedIn] Benedikt Stolz LinkedIn Profile | https://www.linkedin.com/in/benediktstolz/
10. [Perplexity Sonar Pro Brief] Summary of Turn2X's model and value proposition | Derived from linked sources.