Today, the U.S. Department of Energy announced up to $64 million in funding to advance innovations that will build new markets for the H2@Scale initiative. This investment will support transformational research and development (R&D), innovative hydrogen concepts that will encourage market expansion and increase the scale of hydrogen production, storage, transport, and use.
Hydrogen and fuel cells represent an industry with the potential to enable resiliency, energy security, emission reductions, and economic growth across sectors. While the United States produces 10 million tons of hydrogen annually, a significant increase in hydrogen supply and demand will be required to fully realize hydrogen benefits across the economy. Hydrogen can add value to industrial sectors such as steel and ammonia production, spur baseload power sources such as nuclear, and accelerate the integration of renewables in the energy system. Opportunities also exist in large-energy use applications for mobility, such as trucks, rail and marine, as well as in energy storage.
Topic areas include:
Electrolyzer Manufacturing R&D (up to $15M): Lowering the cost of hydrogen produced from megawatt- and gigawatt-scale electrolyzers by improving large-scale, high-volume electrolyzer manufacturing in the U.S.
Advanced Carbon Fiber for Compressed Gas Storage Tanks (up to $15M): Reducing the cost of hydrogen and natural gas storage tanks by developing low-cost, high-strength carbon fiber and scaling up to industry-relevant scales.
Fuel Cell R&D and Domestic Manufacturing for Medium and Heavy Duty Transportation (up to $10M): Advancing the development of domestically manufactured fuel cell components and stacks that meet the cost and performance needs of trucks and other emerging heavy duty applications.
H2@Scale New Markets R&D – HySteel (up to $8M): Enabling the use of hydrogen in steel manufacturing applications, aligned with FCTO and H2@Scale priorities for fostering new markets for hydrogen.
H2@Scale New Markets Demonstrations in Maritime and Data Centers (up to $14M): Developing first-of-a-kind demonstrations to jumpstart emerging new market opportunities for hydrogen in maritime and data center applications.
Training and Workforce Development (up to $2M): Creating cohesive, strategic, and well-coordinated regional efforts to develop the skills necessary to support the growing hydrogen and fuel cell industry.
Concept papers are due February 25, 2020 and full applications are due April 20, 2020.
Source DOE
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