Hydrogen Projects in the US

There has been a recent surge in new proposals for burning hydrogen across the United States. The information below represents a non-exhaustive list of proposals CEG has been tracking so far.

CALIFORNIA

  • SoCalGas and SDG&E have submitted blending proposals of up to 20% hydrogen in natural gas pipelines for combustion over the next five years. This proposal did not address NOx emissions concerns (source).

FLORIDA

  • Florida Power & Light is slated to complete a 20 MW green hydrogen plant by 2023. This hydrogen will be used in a 20% blend at FP&L’s 1.75-gigawatt Okeechobee gas-fired plant (source). FP&L has not yet submitted these plans for environmental review.

NEW JERSEY

  • JERA Americas has announced plans to blend hydrogen at its Linden Cogeneration plant in Linden, New Jersey. Linden Cogen will take Bayway Refinery produced hydrogen-containing fuel gas and blend it with natural gas used to fuel the 172MW Linden Cogen unit 6 gas turbines. The modification will enable using a fuel gas blend containing up to 40% hydrogen. Most current NOx emissions technology can only effectively control NOx emissions in a 30% hydrogen blend, a concern that was not addressed in the proposal (source).
  • New Jersey Resources Corp. has begun construction on a green hydrogen project in Howell, N.J. The project will use electricity from a nearby solar farm to generate green hydrogen which will then be injected into the company’s gas distribution system beginning in October 2021. The company has not expressed how much green hydrogen will be injected into its gas distribution system, nor is it clear if this plan has been reviewed by any state environmental regulators (source).

NEW YORK

  • NRG has filed for a repowering of their Astoria, Queens peaker power plant based on a plan to convert to hydrogen by 2040 (source). This plan does not address NOx emissions concerns in its most recent Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (source).
  • Danskammer in New York has released a $500 million proposal to covert the River-Road peaker power plant into a full-time facility, based on a plan to convert to at least 30% hydrogen by 2030 and 100% hydrogen by 2040 (source). The site’s preliminary Article 10 documents mention heightened NOx emissions, but no potential avenues for addressing higher emissions (see page 15, source).
  • JERA Americas has signed an agreement with GE to develop a green hydrogen demonstration project in Dover Plains. The agreement calls for using hydrogen for 5% of the fuel in one of the three units at the power station. This initiates the first step toward converting to a 100% hydrogen fuel capable plant (source).

NORTH CAROLINA

  • Dominion Energy North Carolina has asked regulators for approval of a $215,000 pilot project to blend 5% hydrogen with natural gas. The proposed project will be run on a closed loop to customers near Dominion’s NC headquarters in Gastonia. Dominion is running a similar project with its partner utility in Utah. Neither pilot project has disclosed potential emission threats to local communities (source).

OHIO

  • New Fortress Energy is currently building new GE H-class gas turbines in its Hannibal, Ohio plant. The 485 MW plant will burn a 15-20% blend of hydrogen and natural gas (the highest amount the H-class turbines can burn), starting in November 2021. New Fortress has plans to burn 100% hydrogen at this plant in the next decade (source). The H-class turbine has the same NOx emissions as a newer natural gas turbine (source).

SOUTH CAROLINA

  • Duke Energy Carolinas, Siemens Energy, and Clemson University have partnered to create a hydrogen and combined-heat-and-power project that will electrify and heat the university’s campus. The Siemens Energy will study the use of its Silyzer electrolyzer to produce hydrogen fuel to help power the existing SGT-400 natural gas turbine at the Clemson plant. The project has not announced what blend of hydrogen it will utilize in the study (source).

SOUTHEAST

  • Atlanta-based utility-holding company Southern Company has started its HyBlend research and development project through a partial grant from the U.S. Department of Energy. Southern Company Gas serves 4.2 gas utility customers throughout the southeast. Southern Company has stated it intends to experiment with natural gas/hydrogen blends in its existing gas infrastructure, likely starting at blends of 5% (source).

TEXAS

  • Gulf region utility Entergy has announced plans to use existing oil industry hydrogen pipeline networks and underground salt caverns to ship and store hydrogen and replace natural gas fired power. The utility has announced plans to build a plant near its existing hydrogen pipelines in Sabine, Texas, that will run on a 30% hydrogen/natural gas blend when it begins commercial operation (source). Entergy partnered with Mitsubishi power on the plant; while no emission disclosures have been made, Mitsubishi’s latest generation of hydrogen blend furnaces produce roughly the same NOx emission as a newer natural gas plant (source).

UTAH

  • The Intermountain Power Project has partnered with Mitsubishi Power on a $2 billion power plant upgrade that will have the plant running a 30% natural gas/hydrogen blend by 2025 (source). However, according to the plant’s own documentation, the plant will have the same NOx and CO2 emissions as a newer natural gas plant (source). At a 30% blend, the plant will use the same amount of water as a coal plant (source).

VIRGINIA

  • Balico LLC has signed a hydrogen integration contract with Mitsubishi Power for its 1.65GW natural gas-fired power plant in Charles City County, Virginia (source). Although the producer has not yet stated what level of hydrogen blending, they plan to pursue, Mitsubishi’s dry low NOx models can generally manage a maximum 30% blend (source). This project has already come under fire for not addressing criteria pollutants in its environmental review (source).
  • Dominion Energy has also stated that they will be pursuing a 5% blend of hydrogen in their natural gas pipelines beginning this year (source).