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Dive Brief:
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The U.S. Department of Energy’s Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies Office will focus for the next several years on research, development and demonstration projects that improve the efficiency, durability and cost effectiveness of clean hydrogen production systems, according to a new Multi-Year Program Plan released on Monday.
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The plan centers the DOE’s “Hydrogen Shot” goal of cutting the cost of clean hydrogen production to $1 per kilogram by 2031. It also aims to cut the cost of electrolyzer systems to $250-500/kW, the cost of fuel cell systems for heavy duty transportation to $80/kW, and the final dispensed cost of hydrogen fuel to less than $7/kg.
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While the hydrogen industry is already well on its way to meeting the Hydrogen Shot’s central goal, others will require ambitious advances in industry scale or technology, according to Frank Wolak, president and CEO of the Fuel Cell and Hydrogen Energy Association.
Dive Insight:
The new Multi-Year Program Plan for the Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies Office may not cover a lot of new ground for the industry — the DOE established the headlining Hydrogen Shot goal in 2021 — but it should help the department and the industry focus future research and development efforts on areas that will advance the adoption of hydrogen, Wolak said.
“DOE is really looking to put its shoulder to the grindstone and get some things done that make improvements,” he said. “We have tax credits, but we have to find ways to make hydrogen more efficient and lower the cost of the end product, and a lot of [this plan] seems to be focused on driving down cost and increasing performance.”
Beside the hydrogen shot, the Multi-Year Program Plan prioritizes research into more affordable and reliable systems for transporting and dispensing hydrogen in order to cut the ultimate cost to end users to less than $7/kg by 2028.
The Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies Office would also like to see the cost for heavy-duty transportation fuel cells drop to $80/kW by 2030, with 20,000 fuel cell stacks manufactured per factory per year. Low temperature electrolyzers, ideally, would cost $250/kW with 65% efficiency by 2026, while high-temperature electrolyzer systems would run $500/kW at 76% efficiency, according to the plan.
“DOE has given a signal that it wants to act aggressively,” Wolak said. Reaching the goals outlined in the plan, he said, will require advances in technology and in the overall scale of the hydrogen industry.
However, he noted that several of the plan’s goals are already within the industry’s line of sight, including the $1 production costs target. The DOE noted in its plan that previous efforts have already cut the capital cost of proton exchange membrane electrolyzer systems by 80% since 2005. Fuel cell systems for automotive applications cost 70% less than in 2008, and the cost of compressed onboard hydrogen storage systems has fallen 30% since 2013.
“While the progress in clean hydrogen today is encouraging, it is also clear that more is needed — and the actions taken must be well-planned, deliberate, carefully executed with measurable outcomes, and they must come without delay,” Sunita Satyapal, director of the Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies Office, said in a forward to the program plan.
