The US Department of Energy’s (DOE) Hydrogen Earthshot initiative is not even two months old and Spanish utility Iberdrola’s US division Avangrid has answered the call with a robust suite of potential projects.

The DOE’s aim is to spin up a constellation of ideas, and to seed the landscape with shared proposals. It’s RFI (request for information) seeks ultimately to trigger a hydrogen ecosystem, lower the cost of electrolysis, and Avangrid’s existing asset base appears ripe for exploration of these goals. Avangrid identified its gas utility assets in the state of Connecticut, for example, as a prime candidate to deploy a 20MW electrolyser and hydrogen storage facility, capable of producing 2.9mn kg of hydrogen per year. Avangrid noted the imminent construction of a new, offshore wind industry from which it could draw in the future.

“Our Connecticut-focused response acknowledges the state’s innovative procurement of large-scale offshore wind power and considers its potential as a unique resource for green hydrogen production, while also providing information on scenarios where solar PV and/or grid-based power contribute to the production of hydrogen for the region,“ says Avangrid spokesman Adam Gaber.

Avangrid owns eight electric and gas utilities in the US northeast, and a much broader portfolio of renewables across the US. Gaber also notes that Avangrid “​​supports the Federal administration’s goal of achieving $1/kg green hydrogen by 2030, but other than that goal, neither Avangrid nor the DOE has implied any specific timeline for the deployment of hydrogen infrastructure.”

Green aspiration

The production of economic green hydrogen in the US remains an aspiration. The US is engaging in a well- known sector-development model that it has used previously in other industries including renewable energy and aerospace. Responses to its RFI will eventually become candidates for future funding rounds, creating a development pipeline.  More broadly, however, the US has lagged severely in both self-investment and also research and development spending for decades, but suddenly has a new appetite for government seeded innovation. Even Republicans, who have  been ideologically against any innovation model not exclusive to the private sector, have found themselves more open to the Biden administration's efforts. Still, even in a robust innovation landscape, the US may find that it will need a European style carbon market to make progress more fluid.

Avangrid supports the Federal administration’s goal of achieving $1/kg green hydrogen by 2030 – Gaber, Avangrid

One of the more notable responses from Avangrid focuses on the potential for an electrolyser facility that would start to decarbonise its Klamath Falls, Oregon natural gas driven cogeneration plant, operated by its renewables division. “The Klamath plant is unique in that it is used to balance the intermittency of the energy generated by Avangrid’s 1,300MW fleet of wind and solar projects in the Northwest,” says Gaber. The basic idea is that a new electrolyser would act as a source of demand load that could run whenever needed to prevent the curtailment of surplus clean generation from wind and solar. Avangrid is unique in that it’s the only renewables operator that operates its own independent balancing authority. 

The EIA says that in 2020, renewables collectively became the second largest source of electricity in the US, nipping past coal and nuclear, and now behind only natural gas. The green hydrogen potential is rich, therefore, from the standpoint of clean power supply. What’s needed however is the propagation of industrial, demand side projects that get the learning rate going in electrolysis. Avangrid also has its eye on this area, with a response for a very large scale electrolyser facility in Corpus Christi, Texas that would convert state generated wind power into both green hydrogen and ammonia. 

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Author: Gregor Macdonald