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But hydrogen faces the same challenge as just about every other clean technology: Can we get the price down far enough, fast enough? If people have to pay too much to be green, change will happen too slowly. But if we get the Green Premiums down near zero, there is a chance to build a prosperous net-zero economy. It’s going to take a big push for collaboration between business and governments, which, together, can make innovation happen much faster than usual by being aggressive with investments and policies.

New Mexico signed a memorandum of understanding in February with Colorado, Utah and Wyoming to jointly pursue a slice of $8 billion in federal funding that the U.S. Department of Energy will award over the next year to build at least four — and possibly up to eight — “hydrogen hubs” in different regions or states across the U.S. That’s part of the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure law that Congress approved last fall as part of national efforts to build a non-carbon economy, paving the way for states and regions to seek competitive grants of up to $1 billion or more for hydrogen-hub development.

The SamTrans Board of Directors voted this month to replace 30 diesel buses with 20 battery electric buses (BEB) and 10 Hydrogen-fuel cell electric buses (FCEB). This purchase helps move SamTrans planned full conversion of the fleet from a projected to 2038 to 2034. 

SamTrans will be introducing a mix of BEB and FCEB at the launch of its Zero Emission Bus (ZEB) fleet deployment to assess how the two technologies perform under different conditions, which can serve which routes better and what it would require to meet their infrastructure needs. Ultimately, SamTrans will develop a plan for full ZEB conversion of the fleet by 2034, six years before the state mandated conversion in 2040.

The European Commission unveiled today its plans to kick off a European Electrolyser Partnership. This Partnership aims to address the challenges in establishing and maturing a strong industrial manufacturing base in Europe and identify potential mitigating policies and actions where necessary.

The Electrolyser Partnership was conceived earlier in May at the Electrolyser Summit organised jointly by the European Commission and Hydrogen Europe, where 20 industry CEOs and Commissioner for Internal Market Thierry Breton signed a Joint Declaration outlining the commitment of the electrolyser industry and the European Commission to deliver on the REPowerEU ambitious goals. This dedicated platform will be hosted under the European Clean Hydrogen Alliance, which is managed by the European Commission. Hydrogen Europe is delighted to have played a facilitating role in bringing together all parties at a crucial time for the renewable hydrogen sector.

SoCalGas and National Grid both said it would help if states adopt renewable fuel standards that would require utilities to buy a certain amount of renewable gas to encourage energy firms to produce more of it.

“Hydrogen is essential to decarbonize sectors that cannot be electrified, like aviation, maritime, and high-heat manufacturing and should therefore be prioritized for these sectors,” said Remi Eriksen, Group President and CEO of DNV. “Policies do not match hydrogen’s importance. They will also need to support the scaling of renewable energy generation and carbon capture and storage as crucial elements in producing low-carbon hydrogen.”

Toyota Motor North America (Toyota) and Chevron are supporting Valley Clean Air Now (Valley CAN) to establish a first-of-its-kind pilot program to provide hydrogen-powered certified pre-owned, zero-emission Toyota Mirai Fuel Cell Electric Vehicles (FCEV) at no cost to 27 San Joaquin
Valley residents to replace their older gasoline-powered cars. The program, offering a way to provide access to zero-emission vehicles to more people to quantifiably reduce air emissions in the San Joaquin Valley, also provides participants with $15,000 prepaid fuel cards intended to cover the cost of three years’ worth of hydrogen fuel.

The program will also produce a study that will provide much-needed data on the benefits that fuel cell electric vehicles can provide to residents of underserved communities – especially long-range commuters and farmworkers – that can help inform equitable zero-emission vehicle policy as well as future efforts to deploy FCEVs in local communities. The study will also examine the economic benefits of eliminating most transportation costs for low-income commuters, which are a known inhibitor of upward mobility for working families.

The ACES Delta project envisions producing up to 100 metric tonnes per day of hydrogen from water and renewable energy sources using a 220-MW alkaline electrolyzer bank manufactured by Norwegian firm HydrogenPro—one of the largest deployments of its type to date. ACES Delta will store that hydrogen in two gigantic solution-mined caverns sited in the only salt dome in the Western U.S, each of which can store up to 150 GWh of energy.
 

To put that in perspective, we are projecting that there will be about 150 GWh of utility-scale battery storage on the nation’s entire electric grid by 2030,” noted Jigar Shah, director of the DOE’s Loan Programs Office (LPO), during a call with reporters on Wednesday.

The ultimate goal is to compete with conventional fueling times of diesel vehicles (roughly 10 minutes), which translates to an ambitious hydrogen gas mass flow rate of 10 kg/min average (20 kg/min peak) based on a maximum onboard vehicle storage potential of 100kg hydrogen gas. This rate is roughly 10 times the average mass flow rate currently used for light-duty FCEVs.

On April 26, 2022, the IHS team exceeded this mass flow rate goal, demonstrating an average mass flow rate of 14 kg/min (21 kg/min peak) with a 40.3 kg fill into a bank of 8 hydrogen storage tanks—similar to those used by HD vehicles—in 2.87 minutes. This intermediate milestone will pave the way for the project to meet the ultimate milestone of completing a 60-80kg fill in under 10 minutes with the fast mass flow rates.

“We absolutely need hydrogen in the mix, and we need cost-effective ways to get hydrogen from where it’s produced to where it will be consumed,” said Tyson Eckerle, deputy director of zero-emissions vehicle market development for GoBiz. “Pipelines are a really key component of the mix.”

Right now, most of the hydrogen provided to retail fueling stations is carried in diesel tanker trucks, Eckerle said, though efforts are being made to transition them to big rigs fueled with hydrogen fuel cells to decrease their emissions footprint.

Getting people to adopt hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles, “a lot of it comes down to cost, which relates directly to scale, which is why pipelines are so important,” Eckerle said.