The Great Lakes Clean Hydrogen Hub coalition is the latest regional group to submit a proposal for a share of the $8 billion in federal funds from the Department of Energy’s regional clean hydrogen hub program.
In April, seven Northeast states submitted a bid to compete for a $1.25 billion share of the clean hydrogen hub funding made available under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
Also in April, the Southeast Hydrogen Hub, comprised of Dominion Energy, Duke Energy, Louisville Gas & Electric and Kentucky Utilities, Southern Company, the Tennessee Valley Authority, and Battelle Memorial Institute, submitted a bid for clean hydrogen hub funding.
The Great Lakes Clean Hydrogen Hub’s application details a $2 billion plan to create a clean hydrogen hub to serve Ohio, Michigan, and portions of Pennsylvania and Indiana. The coalition said its proposed project would use carbon dioxide-free nuclear power to produce clean hydrogen at a competitive cost and, because it would use proven production technologies, would minimize the time required to achieve full production of 100-plus metric tonnes of hydrogen per day.
The Great Lakes Clean Hydrogen is led by Linde, a global industrial gases and engineering company, and includes Energy Harbor, a power generation company that owns nuclear plants in Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia; steel producer Cleveland-Cliffs; GE Aerospace; the University of Toledo, and the Glass Manufacturing Industry Council.
The coalition said its composition offers shovel ready opportunities to replace fossil fuels with clean hydrogen and it has been working with the states of Ohio and Michigan, technology suppliers, hydrogen consumers, state and regional academic institutions, national laboratories, and nonprofit organizations.
The group said it aims to help major industries across the Midwest to decarbonize and also plans to serve the hydrogen needs of the mobility market, including trucking, transit buses, rail, aviation, and marine.
In November 2022, Salt River Project, along with other members of the Center for an Arizona Carbon-Neutral Economy, submitted a concept paper for federal funding of clean hydrogen initiatives.
And in March 2022, the governors of Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming signed a memorandum of understanding for the development of a regional clean hydrogen hub that would be funded under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
