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By
Julian Spector
October
18, 2023
11 winners from the US’ $7B investment in ‘clean
hydrogen’
Get familiar with the entities best positioned
to shape — and benefit from — the plan to create 7 “hydrogen hubs”
around the nation.
A partially constructed hydrogen plant at Chevron's
Richmond, Calif. refinery in 2009 (Liz Hafalia/The San Francisco
Chronicle/Getty Images)
The Department of Energy laid down its bets
Friday in the first phase of its effort to instigate an American
clean-hydrogen economy. The agency selected seven regional winners of
a collective $7 billion in funding allocated by the Bipartisan
Infrastructure Law to get a series of “hydrogen hubs” up and running.
Now negotiations will begin to finalize the proposals.
The DOE, following the requirements in the law, spread out the hubs
geographically and technologically, investing in different sources and
uses for clean hydrogen. To qualify, each hub had to convincingly
demonstrate that it could “produce at least 50–100 metric tons of
clean hydrogen per day and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.” The
diversified approach broadens the toolkit and gives more communities a
reason to get excited about a potential hydrogen economy, though it
has also elicited criticism from climate advocates for its support of
hydrogen derived from methane with carbon capture.
As demonstrated by the fanfare surrounding the program’s presidential
rollout, the big bucks at play and the potential to help decarbonize
everything from steelmaking to aviation, the hydrogen hubs are set to
become one of the biggest storylines in the U.S. clean energy
transition. So it’s a fitting time to get familiar with the entities
best positioned to shape — and benefit from — the emerging low-carbon
hydrogen economy.
The total tally of organizations is far too
extensive to relay here — just the California hub’s list of 400
participants stretches about as long as that state’s scenic coastline.
But a handful of companies appear in two or more regional hydrogen
hubs; this list includes oil and gas majors, clean electricity
producers, cleantech startups and at least one major corporate
customer. One player in particular gets around: Legacy industrial
hydrogen supplier Air Liquide showed up on the dance cards at six of
the seven winning hubs, which seems to be the record.
Here’s a handy alphabetical guide to the most active participants
named in the DOE’s chosen hydrogen hubs (with hubs listed in
parentheses).
AES Corporation (California, Gulf Coast)
This independent power producer took a decisive strategic turn toward
clean energy in recent years, shutting down coal plants and building
renewables and batteries. Now it stands to supply the renewable power
needed to run electrolysis for green-hydrogen production. AES
previously stated it would build a $4 billion renewables-powered
hydrogen facility northwest of Dallas along with legacy producer Air
Products. They’re aiming to bring it online by 2027, turning 1.4
gigawatts of renewable generation into 200 metric tons per day of
green hydrogen, far bigger than anything like it in the U.S. today,
and a step toward the DOE’s goal of producing 10 million metric tons
of clean hydrogen annually by 2030.
Air Liquide (Appalachia, California, Gulf Coast, mid-Atlantic, PNW)
It might not be a household name, but 120-year-old French company Air
Liquide is a central figure in the legacy hydrogen industry, which has
focused almost entirely on the carbon-emitting steam methane
reformation process. But Air Liquide has taken steps to keep up with
the green-hydrogen revolution; in 2021, it opened a facility housing
20 megawatts of electrolyzers in Quebec powered by local hydropower,
which ranked as the largest green-hydrogen production in the world way
back then. The company operates extensively in the Gulf Coast
petrochemical corridor, and it already stores hydrogen in an
underground cavern in Beaumont, Texas that holds a month’s worth of
backup for its pipeline. But the geographical spread of the hub
appearances shows that Air Liquide won’t be pigeonholed in any one
region.
An electrolysis plant at an Air Liquide facility
in Germany (Henning Kaiser/Picture Alliance/Getty Images)
Amazon (California, PNW)
The online retailer and web services giant invested early in hydrogen
to power forklifts at its warehouses; it found the liquid fuel
performed better than batteries for running emissions-free indoor
vehicles. As of 2022, Amazon was running 15,000 forklifts at 70
fulfillment centers on green hydrogen with help from partner Plug
Power, while scoping out the fuel for decarbonizing its delivery
fleet. Both the California and the Pacific Northwest hubs aim to
remake the West Coast heavy-duty trucking network in a cleaner,
hydrogen-powered image. Amazon has explicitly said it is testing
hydrogen trucks for shipping and fuel cells for powering its
buildings, and it wants to use its bulk purchasing power to expand the
market for cleanly produced hydrogen. Now it will have a chance to
make good on those aspirations.
Bloom Energy (California, mid-Atlantic)
This long-running and perennially unprofitable cleantech player has
sold solid-oxide fuel cells to give customers 24/7 onsite power
production without any combustion. Those fuel cells historically have
run on fossil gas, but more recently Bloom has played up its hydrogen
competency so its purported climate solutions don’t depend on a steady
supply of fossil fuels. It recently tested its high-temperature
solid-oxide electrolyzer at government research centers, and it claims
it produces hydrogen more efficiently than other leading electrolyzer
technologies.
Chevron (California, Gulf Coast)
The U.S.-based oil major hasn’t done much to create clean energy thus
far; its roundup of low-carbon efforts makes much use of the future
tense. But the company knows hydrogen: It makes 1 million metric tons
of the gas per year from fossil fuels, much of which is used to refine
oil. As far as forward-looking, potentially clean hydrogen, Chevron
owns a majority stake in the electrolysis and storage venture in
Delta, Utah known as ACES; it also is working on Gulf Coast hydrogen
production with Air Liquide and other partners.
ExxonMobil (Gulf Coast, Midwest)
For many years, ExxonMobil’s clean-energy aspirations amounted to
running ads about an algae-based biofuel program that even it
eventually admitted didn’t make sense. Now Exxon is betting that its
base of infrastructure in the Gulf and general know-how for making and
selling liquid fuels will give it an edge in the emerging
clean-hydrogen economy. The feds are spending money on blue hydrogen,
which requires capturing carbon emissions and piping it into permanent
storage. Piping gases around and flushing them underground happens to
be one of Exxon’s strong suits. If the existing carbon pipelines
around Houston can’t support competitive blue-hydrogen production,
it’s hard to imagine anywhere else that could.
GTI Energy (Appalachia, Gulf Coast, Midwest)
Illinois-based nonprofit GTI is “focused on developing, scaling, and
deploying energy transition solutions that improve lives, economies,
and the environment.” Apparently, it’s got a knack for the nonprofit
equivalent of business development — multiple hubs tapped GTI to help
organize and administer their grants.
Holtec (Midwest, mid-Atlantic)
Holtec looms large in the nuclear power industry: It services and
maintains nuclear power plants, stores nuclear waste, and even
developed its own design for a small modular reactor that just might
see the light of day some year in the future. Holtec is participating
in two of the hubs that we know will tap existing nuclear fleets to
supply carbon-free power for electrolysis. Wind and solar can produce
green hydrogen when they’re available; nuclear could provide
carbon-free power round the clock. The 24/7 industrial demand for
hydrogen production would make for welcome commercial demand at legacy
nuclear plants that have struggled to keep their doors open.
Mitsubishi Power Americas (Gulf Coast, PNW)
Mitsubishi got in early on green hydrogen working on the fully
integrated hydrogen project in Delta, Utah, which will combine
production, underground storage and use for power and other needs.
That experience, plus a big balance sheet and a trusted brand in heavy
power equipment, made Mitsubishi Power a sought-after partner for the
Gulf Coast and Pacific Northwest hubs.
Plug Power (Appalachia, California, Midwest)
Publicly traded Plug Power started off making fuel cells but hit its
commercial stride by selling thousands of fuel-cell forklifts to
Amazon. Now it is building its own green-hydrogen production with
electrolyzer technology it acquired from a company called Giner ELX.
Its new green-hydrogen production line is coming online this fall in
Georgia; that will make it one of the first newcomers to join the
ranks of Air Liquide and other legacy firms supplying liquid hydrogen
to vehicles. But Plug is building a brisk business selling fuel cells,
electrolyzers and liquefaction equipment to whoever needs it. It’s
“picks and shovels” for the hydrogen gold rush, and executives
reported recently that this puts them on a “path to profitability.”
TC Energy (Appalachia, Heartland)
Canadian energy company TC Energy already owns and operates
considerable fossil gas infrastructure (anyone remember TransCanada?).
Now it’s moving into the hypothetically cleaner world of hydrogen gas
production and distribution. TC has previously signed tentative
agreements to “explore” hydrogen projects with Marathon Petroleum,
Hyzon and Nikola. The company is excited about using “diverse
feedstocks” to make hydrogen, meaning renewable electrolysis as well
as fossil-based production with carbon capture. TC Energy says it’s
developing a total of 10 blue and green hydrogen hubs across North
America. The jury’s still out on whether blue hydrogen makes sense
from a climate perspective. But the blue hydrogen that gets federal
dollars will need to put its carbon dioxide somewhere, so a gas
company with pipeline assets will have a role to play.
Correction: This article has been updated to clarify
that Air Liquide is involved in six of out of the seven hydrogen hub
projects, not five out of seven, as initially written.
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