Hydrogen Program (2020 DOE Transition)

Book 2 - Issue Papers
Entire 2020 DOE Transition book As of October 2020

Hydrogen is part of a comprehensive energy portfolio that can enable energy security and resiliency and provide economic value and environmental benefits for diverse applications across multiple sectors. The DOE Hydrogen Program is addressing key challenges in core technical and institutional areas including cost, durability, reliability, performance, hydrogen infrastructure, and other non-technical barriers such as codes, standards, and workforce development. EERE’s Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies Office (HFTO) coordinates Hydrogen Program activities across EERE, FE, NE, OE, SC, and ARPA-E.

Summary

Hydrogen, as a versatile energy carrier and chemical feedstock, offers advantages that unite all of our nation’s energy resources—renewables, nuclear, and fossil fuels—and enables innovations in energy production, storage, end-uses, and integration across transportation, industry, and power generation sectors.

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Figure 1. Conceptual H2@Scale energy system

The mission of the DOE Hydrogen Program is to research, develop, and validate transformational hydrogen and related technologies to enable adoption across multiple applications and sectors. H2@Scale, a DOE initiative launched by HFTO in 2016, provides an overarching vision for how hydrogen can enable energy pathways across applications and sectors in an increasingly interconnected energy system. The H2@Scale concept, shown in Figure 1, is based on hydrogen’s potential to meet existing and emerging market demands across multiple sectors. It envisions how innovations to produce, store, transport, and utilize hydrogen can help realize that potential and achieve scale to drive revenue opportunities and reduce costs. Hydrogen’s versatility as both a chemical feedstock and an energy carrier can serve end-uses in various markets such as transportation applications (e.g., in heavy duty trucks and other vehicles; as a feedstock for synthetic fuels; and to upgrade petroleum and bio-fuels); industrial feedstock (e.g., in steel and cement manufacturing); heat in industrial systems and buildings; power generation (for large-scale power, off-grid distributed power, and back-up or emergency power); and energy storage.

Background

The United States has been at the forefront of hydrogen and fuel cell R&D, from its inception in the space program, to enabling commercialization in transportation, stationary power, and portable-power applications. For the last 15 years, DOE has coordinated hydrogen and related efforts through the DOE Hydrogen Program as shown in Figure 2. HFTO coordinates activities among the DOE offices and meets monthly at a technical level to evaluate progress and strengthen activities. Each office focuses its RD&D activities on their respective energy sources, feedstocks, and target applications. All of these activities are coordinated to achieve a cohesive and strategically managed effort. As a recent example, EERE has been working closely with FE to define a matrix of roles and responsibilities, including, for example, EERE’s focus on water-splitting, renewable integration, and distributed-scale storage and utilization; and FE’s focus on leveraging fossil resources for hydrogen production and on large-scale utilization, such as combustion.

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Figure 2. DOE Hydrogen Program organizational structure

HFTO has also served since 2018 as the elected Chair of the International Partnership for Hydrogen and Fuel Cells in the Economy(IPHE), which includes 20 countries and the European Commission. IPHE is one of the primary mechanisms through which the HFTO coordinates and collaborates with other new and emerging partnerships such as the Clean Energy and Hydrogen Energy Ministerials.

Authorizations for the Hydrogen Program in Energy Policy Act of 2005 cover multiple areas, including the following in Title VIII of the U.S. Code:

Sec. 805 (a) IN GENERAL.—The Secretary, in consultation with other Federal agencies and the private sector, shall conduct a research and development program on technologies relating to the production, purification, distribution, storage, and use of hydrogen energy, fuel cells, and related infrastructure. (b) GOAL.—The goal of the program shall be to demonstrate and commercialize the use of hydrogen for transportation (in light duty vehicles and heavy-duty vehicles), utility, industrial, commercial, and residential applications.

Issue(s)

There are a wide range of applications where the use of hydrogen has the potential for significant future global demand. Industry has projected a potential $2.5 trillion global market for hydrogen technologies by 2050, and investments are ramping up in many countries (e.g. $9 billion in Germany, $7 billion in France, and similar plans in Korea, Japan, and more). To sustain U.S. leadership and widespread commercialization, hydrogen technologies must be competitive in terms of cost, performance, and reliability. Hydrogen production, as well as delivery/infrastructure and storage, are required, and conversion technologies like fuel cells and turbines must be competitive and durable. More Research, Development, and Demonstration (RD&D) is also required in systems development and integration, such as integrating renewables into the grid through hydrogen energy storage. Non-technical barriers need to be addressed, such as developing and harmonizing codes and standards; fostering best practices for safety; and developing a robust supply chain and workforce. A strong, cohesive, and well-coordinated effort that leverages activities across DOE offices and other agencies, as well as states and the private sector, is essential to move forward and address the emerging threats from foreign competition. This cohesive, cross-office effort through the Hydrogen Program—coordinated by HFTO and with strong engagement by FE, NE, OE, SC, and ARPA-E—should continue to be strengthened to address the key challenges.

Status

Today, approximately 10 million metric tons of hydrogen are produced in the U.S. each year, about 1/7th of the global supply, mostly from natural gas. Demand is primarily for ammonia production and oil refining; but analyses indicate the potential for 2 to 4x greater demand for hydrogen in various sectors, particularly for transportation, metals refining, and biofuels. The integration of hydrogen production technologies with utility-scale power generation plants is also a concept recently receiving increased interest, due to its potential to improve the profitability of these plants while supporting grid resiliency.

Annual shipments of fuel cells has increased 15-fold since 2015, now at over 1 GW, and there are thousands of fuel cells across the U.S. for stationary backup power, vehicles, and niche markets such as forklifts at major company warehouses. Much of this progress was enabled by DOE. For example, HFTO funding has led to over 1,100 U.S.-issued patents, 30 commercial technologies in the market (ranging from components like catalysts and membranes to complete systems such as electrolyzers), and reduced transportation cost by 60% and quadrupled durability in the last 15 years.

Milestone(s)

The Program supports target-driven RD&D efforts that will provide the basis for the near-, mid-, and long-term production, delivery, storage, and use of hydrogen derived from diverse domestic energy sources supporting a wide variety of applications, with varying timeframes for commercial adoption.

One of the mechanisms used is to fund consortia led by national labs with industry and university partners to address quantitative metrics, such as H2NEW and the Million Mile Fuel Cell Truck Consortium launched by HFTO. Key targets include the following: reduce the cost of heavy-duty fuel cells by >2X to $80/kW; improve durability by >5X to 25,000 hours by 2030; reduce the cost of electrolyzers by ~3 to 5X to $300/kW to enable $2/kg hydrogen cost; double energy density for onboard hydrogen storage to 1.7 kWh/l; and reduce the cost of hydrogen storage tank cost by > 40% to $9/kWh by 2030. Each office, such as FE and NE, have metrics related to their feedstocks and depending on the end-use application, the goal is $1/kg or $2/kg hydrogen production cost to be competitive with today’s hydrogen from natural gas.

Related

• Hydrogen