You Get A Green Hydrogen Hub! And
You Get A Green Hydrogen Hub!
New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and
Massachusetts cook up a scheme in anticipation of $8 billion in
federal funding for green hydrogen hubs.
Green hydrogen is a thing that is
happening, regardless of lingering skepticism. In the latest
development, New York State has assembled three of its neighbors in
the US northeast and a phalanx of industry stakeholders to propose a
regional “hydrogen ecosystem.” Those who continue to insist that this
is not a good idea will have a big fight on their hands.
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4 Northeast States, 4 Renewable
Energy Stories
The new green hydrogen proposal links New
York with Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Jersey.
New Jersey’s renewable energy story is an
especially interesting one. The state began to make significant
progress at the beginning of the 21st century, until
a fossil-friendly governor decided to
slow-walk the state’s wind industry. He also summarily pulled it
out of the
Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, disabled
a regional EV charging initiative, and kicked a major interstate
rail transit project to the curb (the New York — New Jersey
ARC tunnel project).
Well, that was then. New Jersey has since
gotten back on the renewable energy track, and as recently as last
year it appeared to be on track to
develop a dueling clean H2 project to compete with New York. The
new regional proposal should help smooth a pathway for accelerating
decarbonization together.
New York State had a somewhat smoother
energy transition, and now it hosts
a national wind power R&D consortium aimed at
accelerating innovation in the wind industry.
Massachusetts is of interest because the
state was supposed to be the site of Cape Wind, the nation’s first
utility-scale offshore wind farm, only to see the title fall to
tiny
Rhode Island after years of legal entanglement. Now Massachusetts
has become the proving ground for
a new, streamlined federal approval process that is shuttling
hundreds of wind turbines into the ocean all up and down the Atlantic
Coast.
Then there’s Connecticut, which has been
trying to
make fuel cells happen for years. The new regional partnership
could finally turn the dream into reality.
Another Regional Green Hydrogen
Hub
The announcement of the new consortium
aims at positioning all 4 states to ladle up a share of a forthcoming
$8 billion Energy Department funding pot for hydrogen hubs.
“By forming this partnership, New York
presents a coordinated, multi-state approach to a hydrogen hub that
connects the entire value chain of hydrogen producers, users,
technology and equipment manufacturers, and the research and
development community including national labs and universities,” New
York State Governor Kathy Hochul’s office explains.
“The coalition will seek to integrate
offshore wind and solar PV into hydrogen production and deploy
hydrogen for use in transportation, including for medium and heavy-
duty vehicles, heavy industry, power generation and maritime
applications or other appropriate uses consistent with decarbonization
efforts,” they continue.
Green hydrogen hubs have been taking form
in
various other parts of the US, but the so-named “Regional
Clean Energy Hydrogen Hub” could top them all due to its access to
offshore wind energy, its technology industry, its leading markets
along the I-95 corridor, and its access to road, rail, and pipeline
networks to other parts of the US.
Considering Europe’s frantic scramble to
wean itself from Russian gas, seaports among the four states are
another key asset as green hydrogen begins to replace liquid natural
gas in the export market.
More Green Hydrogen For
Everything — Except Cars
If you caught that thing about “medium-
and heavy-duty vehicles,” that reflects the consensus view that fuel
cell passenger cars and other light-duty vehicles are not going to cut
it, green hydrogen or not.
China just announced
a sustainable H2 plan that could embrace smaller fuel cell
vehicles along with many other uses for green hydrogen, but here in
the US it appears that fuel cell car fans among the four partner
states in the Regional Clean Energy Hydrogen Hub will have to wait for
their moment.
Other than that, the four partners are
already looking to expand the initial group of 40 industry and
academic partners that have signed on to the project.
“New York and its partner states continue
to seek additional public and private partners in the region and focus
on coordinating the regional fuel cell innovation ecosystem,” Hochul’s
office emphasizes.
The list of partners includes the
familiar name of
Plug Power, an early fuel cell enthusiast that has shifted focus
from
fuel cell forklifts to
sustainable H2 production in recent years.
Other familiar names on key industry
partner list include BAE Systems, Bloom Energy Corporation, Cummins,
FuelCell Energy, and Next Hydrogen.
The utility side is represented by
National Grid, Consolidated Edison, and the Long Island Power
Authority, among others, and academic partners include Columbia,
Cornell, and New York universities.
The Rise Of The Fuel Cell
Speaking of access to overseas markets,
another partner in the proposed hub is the Port Authority of New York
and New Jersey, which is in a position to facilitate green hydrogen
exports and serve as a leading customer, too.
Cleaning up seaport air pollution has
been a particular focus of the US EPA under its
Ports
Initiative, and seaports are ripe with
non-car uses for zero emission fuel cells, though other types of
vehicles may also present a decarbonization avenue. For example, the
Port Authority has been partnering with Toyota on
fuel cell fleet vehicles since 2010. The agency also began
partnering with Bloom Energy on a stationary
fuel cell project at its One World Trace Center campus in 2020, so
more of that could also be in the works.
Over in Connecticut, FuelCell Energy is
happy to note that the state legislature approved
a fuel cell requirement for new electricity generation projects in
the state.
In Massachusetts, last year UMass Lowell
produced an industry-funded study that ran through the challenges and
opportunities involved in
leveraging H2 to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions. The study
came down firmly on the side of opportunities in energy storage among
other industrial applications, which is no surprise considering the
green hydrogen activity already brewing in these areas.
Somewhat surprisingly, the study also
spots an opportunity for deploying fuel cell vehicles to help
decarbonize urban areas. The idea would be to help fill
electrification gaps where charging stations for battery electric
vehicles are impractical. That remains to be seen, though the overall
point is that a one-size-fits-all technology model may not be the best
fit for rapid global decarbonization.
Follow me on Twitter
@TinaMCasey.
Photo: Offshore wind via
US Department of Energy (credit: Dennis Schroeder / NREL 40481).
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About the Author -
Tina specializes
in military and corporate sustainability,
advanced technology, emerging materials,
biofuels, and water and wastewater issues.
Views expressed are her own. Follow her on
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