US efforts to accelerate green hydrogen production stepped up last week with the Biden administration taking three key steps to aid deployment.

At the end of the week, the US Department of Energy (DOE) granted a $505mn loan guarantee to the Advanced Clean Energy Storage project in Delta, Utah. The facility will combine a 220MW alkaline electrolyser with two salt caverns for storage.

Utah-based Intermountain Power Agency will construct an 840MW hydrogen-ready gas-fired power plant—called IPP Renewed—at an adjacent site that will initially run on a blend of 30pc green hydrogen and 70pc natural gas, rising to 100pc green hydrogen by 2045.

The DOE says the loan guarantee will be the first of its kind to a clean hydrogen company.

“Since President Biden’s first day in office, DOE has made it a priority to leverage the potential of the Loan Programs Office to fund emerging technologies that will deploy clean and reliable energy to Americans,” says US energy secretary Jennifer Granholm.

Invoking the Defense Production Act

Also last week President Biden invoked the Defense Production Act, granting the DOE access to a $545m emergency fund to build US manufacturing capacity in five key areas—one of which covers electrolysers, fuel cells and platinum group metals. The move aims to bolster the US supply chain in this industry to avoidance reliance on imports.

“Last week, we took three major steps to increase the production of clean hydrogen” Biden, US president

“President Biden has invoked the Defense Production Act so that the US can take ownership of its clean energy independence,” says Granholm. "For too long the nation’s clean energy supply chain has been over-reliant on foreign sources and adversarial nations.”

The other four areas covered are solar, grid components, heat pumps and insulation.

The DOE recently released a major set of reports laying out its first comprehensive strategy to switch to US industry to clean energy.

Hub funding

At the start of last week, the DOE released a notice of intent to fund the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law’s (BIL’s) $8bn scheme to develop at least four domestic low-carbon hydrogen hubs.

The BIL set aside $8bn for regional clean hydrogen hubs and $1.5bn for clean hydrogen manufacturing and recycling research, development and demonstration.

The financing forms a key part of Biden’s plan to decarbonise the industrial sector—which accounts for one-third of domestic carbon emissions.  

“Amid historic global energy challenges, we must increase the resilience of American energy production. Last week, we took three major steps to increase the production of clean hydrogen—a key part of the puzzle,” says Biden.

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Author: Tom Young