The U.S. Department of Energy announced today that it will allocate $750 million to a series of projects aimed at dramatically reducing the cost of clean hydrogen, by supporting areas including advance electrolysis technologies and improved manufacturing and recycling capabilities for clean hydrogen systems and components, supporting the government’s ambition to significantly boost the U.S.’ clean hydrogen production capacity over the next several years.

The announcement follows the Biden administration’s release in June 2023 of the U.S. National Clean Hydrogen Strategy and Roadmap, aimed at significantly ramping the production, use and distribution of low carbon hydrogen for use in energy intensive industries and including a goal to scale U.S. clean hydrogen production and use to 10 million metric tonnes by 2030, and as much as 50 million tonnes by 2050.

Hydrogen is viewed as one of the key building blocks of the transition to a cleaner energy future, particularly for sectors with difficult to abate emissions, in which renewable energy solutions such as wind or solar are less practical.

Around 10 million metric tonnes (MMT) of hydrogen are currently produced in the U.S., and approximately 94 million metric tonnes globally, although the vast majority is extracted using fossil fuels, which create pollutants and GHG emissions. U.S. hydrogen production, for example, is primarily based on extraction from natural gas through steam methane reforming, and currently generates around 100 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions per year.

The development of clean hydrogen capacity, such as green hydrogen, which uses renewable energy to power the process to extract hydrogen from other materials, will require massive investments in areas including infrastructure, electrolysis, transport and storage.

The new allocations by the DOE will be funded by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which allocates $9.5 billion to clean hydrogen, including $1 billion for research, development, demonstration, and deployment (RD&D) activities to reduce the cost of clean hydrogen produced via electrolysis and $500 million for RD&D of improved processes and technologies for manufacturing and recycling clean hydrogen systems and materials. 

The new funding will support 52 projects across 24 states, and includes $316 million allocated to projects focused on low-cost, high-throughput electrolyzer manufacturing, $150 million for advanced manufacturing of fuel cell assemblies and stacks projects, $82 million for fuel cell supply chain development, $81 million for electrolyzer component and supply chain development, $72 million for advanced technology and component development projects, and $50 million for a recovery and recycling consortium.

According to the DOE, the projects are expected to enable 14 gigawatts of annual fuel cell manufacturing capacity, enough to power 15% of medium- and heavy-duty trucks sold each year, and 10 gigawatts of electrolyzers per year, enough to produce an additional 1.3 million tons of clean hydrogen annually.

U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm said:

“The projects announced today—funded by the President’s Investing in America agenda—will supercharge our progress and ensure our leadership in clean hydrogen will be felt across the nation for generations to come.”