DOE Orders Review of Hydrogen Hubs

DOE’S CLEAN HYDROGEN REVAMP

DOE is reviewing all of its hydrogen hub projects and rescoping most of them to “align with the administration’s energy dominance priorities,” according to an email to POLITICO Thursday.

Energy Secretary Chris Wright completed a review earlier this year of other Biden-era projects, but the fate of five remaining hydrogen hubs has been unclear.

Joe Gollinger, DOE’s director of external affairs, said in the email “there’s been a shift in emphasis from transportation to the agricultural and industrial sectors. If any [hub] projects are deemed viable and meet the goals of the review, they will be recommended for funding.”

Congress appropriated roughly $8 billion in the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law for seven hubs to produce and transport clean hydrogen produced with low-carbon energy or carbon capture. The administration later canceled funding for two of them on the West Coast slated to produce hydrogen from renewables.

In April, DOE signaled it intended to retain the other hubs, but former department officials said the program seemed to be in “ghosted” status. Frank Wolak, head of the Fuel Cell and Hydrogen Energy Association, told ME in an email Thursday that hub leaders “have held multiple discussions with the DOE leadership on getting these initiatives moving forward.”