SoCalGas is partnering with the Bonn, Germany headquartered green hydrogen producer GKN Hydrogen and the US National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) on what is set to be a groundbreaking project to demonstrate green hydrogen as a megawatt scale clean energy storage resource.
With funding of $1.7 million from the US Department of Energy and additional support including $400,000 from SoCalGas, the project will connect two of GKN Hydrogen’s HY2MEGA hydrogen storage subsystems with 500kg of hydrogen storage capacity to an electrolyser and fuel cell at NREL’s Flatirons Campus near Boulder, Colorado.
The electrolyser will use renewable sources and produce green hydrogen to be stored in a solid state under low pressure in the HY2MEGA, a modular metal hydride technology solution that has been developed and refined over the last decade and according to GKN Hydrogen, is one of the safest ways to store hydrogen.
The fuel cell will then reconvert the green hydrogen to produce renewable electricity.
“To accelerate the energy transition hydrogen cannot just be part of the discussion, it must be part of the solution,” comments Bruno Biasiotta, CEO at GKN Hydrogen.
“This project will demonstrate that large scale green hydrogen storage with HY2MEGA can be used to help decarbonise and accelerate the shift to cleaner fuels.”
SoCalGas’s contribution is research, development and demonstration funding, which will enable the utility to assist and identify potential commercial use cases.
“SoCalGas will leverage the large-scale hydrogen storage capabilities of GKN Hydrogen’s HY2MEGA from this project to help accelerate the commercialisation and deployment of green hydrogen projects,” states Neil Navin, vice president of clean energy innovations at SoCalGas.
“Ultimately, green hydrogen generation and storage will help decarbonise the energy system while assuring stability of the electrical grid to enable even higher penetrations of renewable sources of electricity.”
The three-year project is set to launch at the end of this year.
