Chemical Transformers and the Clean Hydrogen Grid

Compact Hydrogen Generators, placed as “chemical transformers” on the natural gas grid, can be compared to electrical transformers on the electrical grid. Reconditioning the natural gas (or renewable natural gas) supply to produce hydrogen at or near points-of-use, is a near-term opportunity to begin converting the existing gas grid infrastructure into a highly functional, clean hydrogen grid.

Of critical interest:

• This approach avoids the high cost of transporting hydrogen from central facilities to points of use, a problem that has substantially constrained the rollout of hydrogen filling stations and fuel cell electric vehicles in California, and
• When renewable natural gas is used as the feedstock, the hydrogen product will be scored as low-carbon or carbon-negative using GREET-type assessments.

This presentation will describe a demonstration project that is currently underway in southern California, showing how compact process-intensive microchannel reactors and heat exchangers enable the deployment of mass-producible, low-cost “chemical transformers” as hydrogen generators. Deployed in this manner, the chemical transformers enable low-carbon and even carbon-negative hydrogen at affordable costs for transportation and other uses.

Process-intensive hardware enables high-efficient, modular chemical transformers with small footprints and volumes that can be mass-produced at low cost using assembly lines. We project that the levelized production cost of the hydrogen at the point of use, using these systems, will be less than $3/kg, which based on low fossil carbon emissions would be eligible for subsidies – such as the Clean Hydrogen Production Tax Credit – that further reduces costs to hydrogen users.

This technology demonstration project strongly supports the ambition and need to rapidly reduce fossil carbon emissions in order to limit, and then halt, the rise in atmospheric greenhouse gas levels. In the Pacific Northwest, transportation emissions are more than half of all anthropogenic emissions. In order to support the goal of reducing emissions by 50% by 2030, and to support the goals of the 2015 Paris Agreement, we must aggressively establish affordable, clean H₂ infrastructure promptly. These outcomes are achievable through the deployment of Compact Hydrogen Generators as “chemical transformers” on the gas grid, making affordable, clean H₂ available throughout North America and providing a template for others throughout the world.

Participants in the demonstration project, along with STARS Technology Corporation, include Southern California Gas Company, SunLine Transit Agency, the US Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and RAPID Institute, and several other companies.