The US Department of Energy (DOE) launched the Hydrogen Earthshot Initiative this month, following it up with several presentations at the Hydrogen Americas Summit, hosted by the London-based Sustainable Energy Council.

Infrastructure is already developing quickly. Total electrolyser capacity consists of 25 separate installations with at least 120kW capacity each. The DOE also has a number of demonstration projects underway through its H2@Scale programme, including at a steelmaking facility in Missouri and a datacentre fitted with a fuel-cell battery in Washington, DC.

“No single technology is the answer, and we need to address all the sectors” Satyapal, DOE

But there is a need to pair supply and demand to accelerate the technology further, according to Sunita Satyapal, director of the Hydrogen & Fuel Cell Technologies Office at the DOE. “No single technology is the answer and we need to address all the sectors,” she says.

The DOE is targeting $2/kg for production and $2/kg for delivery and distribution for transport applications. For industrial applications the department is targeting $1/kg for industrial and stationary power generation. Green hydrogen costs in the US are currently $5/kg. With respect to electrolyser costs, the DOE is targeting capital costs of $300/KWh, 80,000 hour durability, and 65pc system efficiency.

Solar shot

The aggressive price targets are reminiscent of the first-term Obama administration targets for solar. In early 2011, Obama announced the SunShot initiative, the aim of which was to reduce the cost of solar by 75pc by the year 2020. The goal was reached three years early in 2017.

But parallels with the solar industry may be premature—China started accelerating solar panel production at the same time as the US programme, bringing down costs. And hydrogen production has a longer value chain than solar panels.

Satyapal said it was a major focus of the DOE to target further cost synergies as hydrogen deployment accelerates.

“We are looking at how we can co-locate large scale production with end use, to drive down the infrastructure costs,” she says. One such likely area is the Mississippi river corridor, which has ample wind power on the supply side and industrial applications on the demand side.

Other sources of demand include biofuels, ammonia and maritime applications.

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Author: Gregor Macdonald