POWER and RE+ Tech Supp September 2022 - 4

RENEWING THE PROMISE OF CLEAN ENERGY
HYDROGEN
Hydrogen Poised to Play Prominent Role
in the World's Energy Transition
P
eople around the world are
searching for ways to decarbonize,
and green hydrogen is a
fuel that can help in that effort. Green
hydrogen is produced through electrolysis
using renewable energy, such
as wind and solar power. Although
most hydrogen produced today is
made from natural gas, often referred
to as gray hydrogen, new capacity is
being added regularly to increase the
amount of green hydrogen available
to consumers.
" We're in the process of a major
transformation in energy, and I think
many people-people like Goldman
and Bloomberg-believe that we're
going to be helping reduce the carbon
footprint of the world by 20% by
using hydrogen, " Andy Marsh, CEO
of Plug Power, said as a guest on The
POWER Podcast.
Although talk of a hydrogen economy
may seem to some observers to be
a relatively new development, Marsh
noted that Plug Power has been in the
fuel cell and hydrogen business for a
quarter century. " What we're kind of
renowned for is that we created the
first market for fuel cells, " Marsh explained.
" We ended up putting fuel
cells into forklift trucks for people like
Walmart or Amazon. "
In fact, Plug has more than 60,000
fuel cells in the field, according to
Marsh. He said there are at least 185
distribution centers, which are primarily
delivering food and retail goods, using
Plug fuel cells. Plug's equipment is
also helping manufacture cars.
However,
the
energy
transition
is the driving force behind recent
growth. " All these activities have a lot
to do with job creation. Over the past
two and a half years, Plug has created
over 2,300 jobs. Now, we have 3,000
employees, " said Marsh. " When I sit
back and look at it, about 20% of our
employees made the transition from
the oil and gas fossil fuel industry to
a clean energy. And finally, with everything
going on in Ukraine, everybody's
beginning to realize that it's so
important for folks in the free world to
be able to strive for energy independence.
And I think hydrogen-the fact
that you can create green hydrogen
from green electricity that can be locally
sourced-really is unique and can
be used in such a wide variety of applications. "
" ...20%
of our employees
made the transition from
the oil and gas fossil
fuel industry to a
clean energy. "
Marsh suggested the best use of
green hydrogen today is as a substitute
for gray hydrogen used in the
steel and fertilizer industries. The
switch would be a big step toward
cleaning up these hard-to-decarbonize
sectors. " That's the biggest opportunity
in the near term, " he said.
Delivery van applications, such as for
Amazon, UPS, FedEx, and others, offer
another opportunity for hydrogen.
While Marsh admitted there's going to
be a lot of electric vehicles operated as
delivery vans, he suggested fuel cells
offer a more attractive option in some
cases. Referencing a study conducted
by DHS, Marsh said when going greater
than 150 miles and as van sizes increase,
fuel cells make good sense. In
early 2021, Plug and Renault launched
a joint venture (JV) in France. The partners
are targeting a 30% share of the
fuel cell-powered light commercial vehicle
market in Europe.
While several countries in Europe
are firmly behind the hydrogen
4 Supplement to POWER & RE+ 2022
movement, Marsh said the U.S. is still
ahead in the hydrogen game. " One
of the misnomers is that the U.S. has
not been the leader, " he said. " There
are more fuel cells deployed in the
U.S. than anywhere else in the world.
There's more hydrogen generated-
especially liquid hydrogen, which is
critical for this industry-in the U.S.
than anywhere else in the world, " he
said. " I don't see the U.S. behind at
all, and I see some of the policy discussions
that are still going on in D.C.,
including a production tax credit for
hydrogen, as well as an extension of
the investment tax credit, are all going
to be quite beneficial to this industry. "
Yet, Plug is very involved in Europe.
" Europe is my new other home, "
Marsh quipped. " We have [the JV]
in France with Renault-we're manufacturing
commercial vehicles as we
speak. We do our electrolyzing system
design in Holland. We have a service
center in Germany, and we have a JV
for generating green hydrogen with
Acciona in Spain. And I can't forget
the announcement from last week
where we're looking to build 35 tons
of liquid hydrogen capacity at the port
of Antwerp, which is, after Houston,
the second-largest chemical cluster in
the world. "
When it comes to transporting hydrogen,
Marsh suggested pipelines
are vital. He offered an example to
make his point, saying hydrogen could
be moved a certain distance through
a pipeline for roughly 3¢ to 4¢ per kilogram
(kg), whereas, moving it the
same distance as liquid hydrogen
might cost 20¢/kg and in gaseous
form via trucks might cost 80¢/kg. " For
this to be cost-effective, pipelines are
really important, " he said.n
-Aaron Larson is POWER's executive
editor (@AaronL_Power, @POWERmagazine).
https://twitter.com/aaronl_Power https://twitter.com/POWERmagazine
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