Takeaways

The Hydrogen Program Plan affirms DOE’s commitment to developing the technologies needed to enable the hydrogen transition in the U.S.
Proposed federal legislation, or future provisions in a clean energy bill, will boost DOE’s hydrogen efforts and bolster DOE’s ability to provide grants to third parties conducting hydrogen research.

Overview of the DOE Hydrogen Program Plan
On November 12, 2020, the DOE released its Hydrogen Program Plan. The Plan represents a strategic framework under which DOE’s multiple offices can operate, allowing for a cohesive and coordinated effort by those offices in their research, development and demonstration (RD&D) activities on hydrogen technologies.

The mission of the Hydrogen Plan is:

“to research, develop, and validate transformational hydrogen and related technologies including fuel cells and turbines, and to address institutional and market barriers, to ultimately enable adoption across multiple applications and sectors.”

To this end, the Plan reaffirms DOE’s view that hydrogen is a vital part of a comprehensive energy portfolio, discusses the myriad benefits of hydrogen in the energy sector, and explains the challenges facing hydrogen technologies which create the need for DOE RD&D leadership. The Plan also establishes DOE’s framework for achieving hydrogen at scale and identifies the Program’s strategy for funding RD&D efforts. It also defines the technology focus areas and RD&D thrusts in areas such as hydrogen production, delivery, storage, conversion and applications.

As discussed in the Plan, hydrogen has many potential benefits and uses, such as a carbon-free fuel for transportation, industrial applications, energy storage and electricity generation. However, realization of the hydrogen economy faces challenges, such as the cost of hydrogen production and lack of a broader hydrogen infrastructure. The Plan establishes a commitment to develop the technologies needed to address these challenges and enable a hydrogen transition within the U.S.

Notably, unlike other fuels, hydrogen requires greater integration of the fossil, nuclear and renewable energy systems, and it will take an integrated approach from all energy sectors to realize the full potential and benefits of hydrogen. One of the ultimate goals of DOE’s Hydrogen Plan is to achieve the affordable production and delivery of hydrogen using a variety of feedstocks, processing methods and delivery options, ranging from small local to large centralized production. Therefore, the hydrogen economy represents a strong opportunity for companies involved in almost any sector of the energy industry.

Current DOE Hydrogen Projects:

Although the Plan represents an expansion of previous efforts, DOE has been already been actively involved in pursuing and funding hydrogen RD&D. Since 2000, DOE has invested over $4 billion in hydrogen and related areas. These research efforts, in collaboration with industry, have resulted in a number of successes such as advanced production systems capable of producing carbon-free hydrogen for less than $2 per kg, and DOE-funded R&D has reduced the cost of transportation fuel cells by 60 percent and quadrupled durability. DOE R&D funding has helped result in over 1,100 U.S. patents issued and over 30 commercial technologies in the market.

Recently, DOE selected two projects to demonstrate integration of light-water nuclear reactors with hydrogen production systems for cost sharing funded through the Office of Nuclear Energy’s U.S. Industry Opportunities for Advanced Nuclear Technology Development funding opportunity announcement.

The first project will involve Xcel Energy working with Idaho National Laboratory (INL) to demonstrate a system that uses a nuclear plant’s steam and electricity to split water. The second project involves FuelCell Energy Inc. partnering with INL to demonstrate and validate a solid oxide electrolysis cell hydrogen production system for integration into nuclear power plants.

Last year, Energy Harbor’s Davis-Besse Nuclear Plant near Toledo, Ohio, received DOE funding for a two-year project to demonstrate commercial hydrogen production via low-temperature electrolysis.

Pillsbury's hydrogen map plots “green” and “blue” hydrogen project, with more than 200 projects already included.

Also, this October, DOE’s Office of Fossil Energy selected four projects for cost-shared research and development funding as part of its Coal FIRST Initiative, which recognizes the importance of hydrogen production from coal, biomass and waste plastics. One of these projects includes a plan by the Electric Power Research Institute Inc. and partners to perform a system-integrated design study on systems related to hydrogen production, and another is a project by Wabash Valley Resources LLC, in coordination with the Gas Technology Institute, to redevelop the existing Wabash Valley Resources coal gasification site in West Terre Haute, Ind., into a Coal FIRST power plant for flexible fuel gasification‑based carbon-negative power and carbon-free hydrogen co-production.

Global Markets and Possible Legislative Assistance in U.S.

The governments of the UK, Japan, South Korea, Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, France, Norway, Portugal and Australia have made hydrogen a cornerstone of the energy transition. It is likely that DOE’s Hydrogen Plan could receive further legislative assistance, as there is bipartisan support for increasing DOE research to promote greater development of integrated and hybrid energy systems, including hydrogen.

For example, in October 2019, Senators Jim Risch (R-ID) and Joe Manchin (D-WV) introduced the Integrated Energy Systems Act of 2019. A related bill, the Integrated Energy Systems Act of 2020, was introduced to the House in June of this year by Reps. Russ Fulcher (R-ID) and Mike Simpson (R-ID).

The Integrated Energy Systems Act would establish an Integrated Energy Systems Program at DOE, which would promote the development of innovative technologies to improve the economic competitiveness of nuclear power plants, promote grid stability, and reduce carbon emissions in the industrial sector. The Program would be carried out by DOE in conjunction with the National Laboratories, higher education institutions, and the private sector.

The Act would authorize DOE to award grants to support the goals of the Program. Specific to hydrogen, the Program’s research areas include research on the “efficient use of emissions-reducing energy technologies for hydrogen production to support transportation and industrial needs.”

If passed, this would therefore represent another pathway for DOE to be able to provide grants to fund hydrogen research.

However, even if this piece of legislation does not pass, the Biden Administration has pledged to work to pass a clean energy bill next year. The Biden Clean Energy Plan embraces the role of hydrogen in the energy transition. It calls for actions to “…rapidly scale up a national hydrogen industry, including demonstrating and manufacturing electrolyzers at industrial scale, to drive down costs and establish U.S. leadership.” Given the bipartisan support for hydrogen, it is likely that any such bill would include similar measures to help promote DOE’s Hydrogen Plan.

Please visit Pillsbury’s hydrogen website and watch our virtual fireside chat to learn more about the energy transition and what it means for market participants.

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