The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), on behalf of the Biden-Harris Administration, today announced the availability of $750 million for research, development, and demonstration projects aimed at significantly lowering the price of clean hydrogen. This funding, which is the first installment of the $1.5 billion set aside in President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law for advancing electrolysis technologies and enhancing manufacturing and recycling capacities, is a critical element of the Administration’s all-encompassing strategy for accelerating the widespread use of clean hydrogen and will be essential to the successful deployment of commercial-scale hydrogen this decade. Generated with net-zero carbon emissions, clean hydrogen is a vital pillar in the burgeoning clean energy economy and will be essential for realizing the President’s objective of a 100% clean electrical grid by 2035 and net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.
“Creating clean hydrogen from abundant renewable energy gives America yet another incredibly powerful fuel for a wide range of uses, from low-emission use in the manufacturing and construction sectors to energy storage to powering our cars and trucks,” said U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm. “Due to new financing from President Biden’s historic clean energy policies, DOE is expediting our effort to make this innovative and flexible fuel market-ready within a decade—supercharging America’s drive towards an affordable and secure clean energy economy,” the DOE said in a statement.
Two provisions of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act, which authorize $1 billion for research, development, demonstration, and deployment activities to lower the cost of clean hydrogen produced through electrolysis and $500 million for research, development, and demonstration of improved processes and technologies for producing and recycling clean hydrogen systems and materials, are now being implemented in their first phase thanks to this funding.
DOE’s Clean Hydrogen Initiative
Future efforts to reduce emissions from some of our economy’s most energy-intensive sectors, such as heavy-duty transportation and industrial and chemical operations, will be greatly aided by clean hydrogen, which can be produced with no or almost no carbon emissions. Clean hydrogen offers flexibility and numerous revenue streams for all forms of clean power generation, including renewables, advanced nuclear, and other cutting-edge technologies.
It can also help the expansion of variable renewable power by providing a method for long-duration energy storage. Hydrogen development will increase American energy independence and speed up the manufacturing boom, which has already generated over 800,000 jobs since President Biden took office. This is because it will make it possible to develop a variety of domestic clean energy pathways across many different sectors of the economy.
Projects funded through this opportunity, which are overseen by DOE’s Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies Office (HFTO), will address underlying technical cost-reduction barriers that cannot be overcome by scale alone and ensure that today’s developing commercial-scale deployments will achieve long-term viability with tomorrow’s lower-cost, higher-performing technology. In addition to generating more clean energy employment, cutting harmful greenhouse gas emissions, and boosting America’s long-term competitiveness in the global clean energy market, achieving cost reduction goals will open new markets for clean hydrogen.