07.24.24

PacNW Hydrogen Hub Awarded First Round of Funding to Kickstart Plan to Produce, Store, & Deploy Clean Fuel

$27.5M will cover Phase I of plan to develop a regional green hydrogen hub in WA, OR, and MT; Sen. Cantwell helped author and secure for $8B hydrogen hub program in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill; Earlier this month, Sen. Cantwell co-led Senate letter to Secretary Yellen urging the Treasury Department fix proposed rules so that hydrogen produced by PacNW Hub will qualify for valuable new tax credit

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA) announced that the Pacific Northwest Hydrogen Association (PNWH2) will receive $27.5 million from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to kickstart the first phase of a $1 billion federal investment to develop hydrogen as a green energy source in the region.

“Today’s announcement is a huge milestone in our region’s efforts to create a hydrogen ecosystem that can help provide clean and affordable alternative fuels for our heavy-duty transportation and manufacturing facilities,” Sen. Cantwell said. “The jobs and training benefits to the community will be immense – an estimated 10,000-plus jobs while creating workforce education programs at all levels. This $1 billion federal investment was made possible by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and now we need to make sure that the hydrogen production incentives in the Inflation Reduction Act will enable us to produce the cleanest hydrogen in the nation.”

In October, the DOE designated PNWH2 as one of seven Regional Clean Hydrogen Hubs (H2Hubs) across the nation, focused on harnessing the Pacific Northwest’s abundant and clean hydropower supplies to produce hydrogen through hydrolysis. Today DOE announced that PNWH2 received Phase 1 award status and will receive an initial amount of up to $27.5 million to fund initial planning, permitting, and analysis activities to ensure that the overall Hub concept is technologically and financially viable, with input from relevant local stakeholders. Besides the $1 billion in federal cost-sharing, the Hub is likely to be matched by over $5 billion in local investments.

Sen. Cantwell worked to include the H2Hubs program and other key hydrogen investments in the BIL during consideration in the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, where she served as a senior member, in July 2021, and push for its successful passage through the Senate. Together with the clean hydrogen incentives included in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), these investments represent a historical investment that will help spur hydrogen to be an important piece of the decarbonizing puzzle needed to reach our climate goals.

In March, Sen. Cantwell co-led a bipartisan delegation of Washington and Oregon lawmakers voicing their support for PNWH2 in a letter to the DOE.

“Supported by the region’s vast federal and non-federal hydropower resources, the PNWH2 will not only demonstrate our region’s ability to produce, process, deliver, store, and use clean hydrogen, we believe it will serve as a national model of how an integrated clean hydrogen network can facilitate the creation of an affordable and self-sustaining clean hydrogen economy,” the lawmakers wrote.

In July, Sen. Cantwell also led her colleagues in a letter to U.S. Department of the Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen urging the agency to ease its criteria for hydrogen power development projects that qualify for the Section 45V Credit, which was established by the IRA and reimburses hydrogen power projects by up to $3 per kilogram of hydrogen produced.

“The 45V credit offers the United States an irreplaceable opportunity to boost our economic and international competitiveness. At this critical juncture for the expansion of domestic clean hydrogen production, it is important that Treasury apply a workable tax treatment of new projects to spur investment, attract customers, and promote new clean energy jobs,” the senators wrote.  The letter also stated, “Getting it right means capitalizing on this opportunity to reduce greenhouse gas emissions faster and enhance our energy security, while strengthening our economy, creating thousands of jobs, and combating the climate crisis.”

The H2Hubs program was established by the BIL. It designates up to $7 billion in competitive grants to establish between six and 10 regional clean hydrogen hubs across the United States. These networks of hydrogen producers, consumers, and local connective infrastructure will help accelerate the use of hydrogen as clean energy and work toward achieving President Biden’s goal of a 100 percent clean electrical grid by 2035 and net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.

The Pacific Northwest Hydrogen Association is a collective of government, tribal, labor, energy, research, nonprofit, and private sector stakeholders aimed at creating a hydrogen center in the Pacific Northwest region. This public-private partnership includes leaders from the Washington State Department of Commerce, the Oregon Department of Energy, Amazon, Washington State University, and others.