Hy Stor Energy last week applied to the Department of Energy for federal funding to support its Mississippi Clean Hydrogen Hub project.
The announcement makes the Jackson, Miss., company the latest entity to apply for a share of the $8 billion in funding the Department of Energy is making available under provisions of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. The Department of Energy’s Regional Clean Hydrogen Hubs program aims to establish as many as 10 regional clean hydrogen hubs across the country.
In October 2021, Hy Stor Energy partnered with Canadian investment firm Connor, Clark & Lunn Infrastructure to develop subterranean salt domes in southern Mississippi to store hydrogen produced from renewable energy.
Hy Stor Energy plans to use the geology of Mississippi, which has several unused salt caverns, to store energy in the form of clean hydrogen made from renewable energy and to take advantage of the state’s geographic position that provides access to shipping corridors.
Researchers from The University of Texas at Austin’s Bureau of Economic Geology are building a database of salt domes and caverns along the Gulf Coast that are suitable for hydrogen storage.
Hy Stor Energy’s Mississippi Clean Hydrogen Hub project has “shovel-ready sites” suitable for renewable hydrogen production and storage and with federal investment of up to $1 billion the project would rapidly scale into a multi-billion-dollar project establishing Mississippi as one of the nation’s largest producers of clean hydrogen with a fully integrated clean hydrogen ecosystem for the production, storage and delivery of dispatchable renewable energy, Hy Stor Energy said. The Mississippi Clean Hydrogen Hub is set to break ground as early as 2023,
The projects envisioned in the funding application will support communities throughout Mississippi and the Gulf Coast region to create new long-term economic development and sustainable jobs, the company said.
Several coalitions have formed around the United States to bid for regional clean hydrogen hub project funding, including a coalition of Southeast utilities that submitted a proposal to build a green hydrogen network that would span six states.
