Maryam Brown
Southern California Gas Co. (SoCalGas) has submitted several research and development initiatives to enable low-cost, clean hydrogen to be made possible by the US Department of Energy's Earthshot Hydrogen Program's Request for Information (RFI). The submissions are designed to help the DOE's hydrogen program prioritize projects that could accelerate clean hydrogen innovation, reduce emissions, create jobs and enable a carbon-free economy by 2050. SoCalGas works with several partners on these initiatives, including the University of California Irvine, University of California Los Angeles and the Green Hydrogen Coalition.
“Green hydrogen is a renewable energy source that is ready to use whenever it is needed for power generation, production or transportation,” said Maryam Brown, President of SoCalGas. “We believe this flexible, storable fuel will be essential to achieving net zero emissions in California, and that's why we're working with these partners to advance these important hydrogen projects.”
SoCalGas recently announced its commitment to achieving net greenhouse gas emissions in its operations and energy supply by 2045. This made SoCalGas the largest gas supplier in the country, including emissions from areas 1, 2 and 3, in line with the recommendations of the Paris Agreement to limit global warming to 1.5 ° C by reaching net zero by the middle of the century will.
The programs submitted to the DOE request include:
HyDeal LA: A green hydrogen ecosystem design initiative to achieve scale green hydrogen procurement for $ 1.50 / kg in the Los Angeles Basin by 2030. HyDeal LA is a collaboration of green hydrogen suppliers, developers, integrators, device manufacturers and investors, environmental groups and other advisors who are coming together to overcome the high cost barrier to the green hydrogen economy by aiming to create North America’s first green hydrogen hub on a large scale Start scale. HyDeal LA aims to include power plants, industrial applications, hydrogen transportation and ultimately the global export of green hydrogen from ports.
Renewable Hydrogen Ecosystem: A project at the University of California, Irvine (UCI) that aims to use hydrogen from solar and wind energy to create a zero-emission energy system on the UCI campus. If successful, this project would demonstrate a scalable solution that urban communities around the world could replicate to achieve zero emissions.
Direct solar methane conversion: A new technology developed by researchers at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) that uses solar energy to separate the carbon and hydrogen atoms in natural gas with no or negative emissions, generate hydrogen, and capture carbon in solid form. which can be used in commercialization in high quality power engineering applications.
“The western United States has abundant renewable resources necessary to produce globally competitive, low-cost green hydrogen,” said Janice Lin, president and founder of the Green Hydrogen Coalition. “By simultaneously working to aggregate cross-sector demand, scale production and design the necessary infrastructure for transportation and storage, HyDeal LA aims to use these renewable resources to produce and deliver green hydrogen on a large scale to meet the needs of the industry Cross-sectoral decarbonization of energy supplies to accelerate facilities, transportation and as raw material for industrial customers. HyDeal LA represents an opportunity for the US Department of Energy to promote the development of domestic green hydrogen hubs and establish the US as a pioneer in this huge new emerging energy export opportunity. ”
“By using solar energy, which is converted into hydrogen, we want to create a 100% carbon-free energy system on the UC Irvine campus,” says Jack Brouwer, director of the UCI's National Fuel Cell Research Center and the Advanced Power and Energy Program. “The system we propose could be replicable across the country when deployed in other universities, industrial campuses, large apartment complexes, military bases and other multi-megawatt microgrids.”