LADWP Helps Launch New Organization to Focus on Green Hydrogen

February 03, 2020

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(Green Hydrogen Coalition) Today (January 21, 2020) marks the official launch of the Green Hydrogen Coalition (GHC), an educational non-profit dedicated to facilitating policies and practices to advance green hydrogen production and use in all sectors where it will accelerate a carbon-free energy future.

Green hydrogen can be produced several ways – by reforming biogas or by splitting water molecules with an electrolyzer powered by renewable electricity such as wind or solar. Hydrogen is currently a global industrial commodity used in many industrial processes around the world. More than 99% of the world’s hydrogen production to date has been from fossil fuels: natural gas, oil and coal.

Now that renewable energy is the lowest cost source of electricity in many countries around the world, alternative pathways for producing ‘green’ or ‘carbon-free’ hydrogen are possible. The formation of the GHC is timely, as more states move toward a 100% renewable electricity system or set zero-carbon goals. In a high-penetration, renewably powered grid, there will be days, even weeks, when the sun is not shining and the wind is not blowing.

GHC Founder and President Janice Lin believes green hydrogen is that long-term energy storage solution. “A multi-day and seasonal energy storage solution will be critical under a 100% renewable scenario. Green hydrogen, which can be produced from low cost wind and solar via electrolysis, can provide this storage need today.” Lin launched the GHC after stepping down from a decade of service as Founder and Executive Director of the California Energy Storage Alliance.

Martin L. Adams, the General Manager & Chief Engineer of Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP), addressed the role of hydrogen in LA’s power future during a December meeting of LADWP’s Board of Water and Power Commissioners saying, “There is no way to get to 100% renewable energy that I can see right now without hydrogen in the mix. The ability to use green hydrogen as an alternative to fossil fuels in existing infrastructure not only ensures reliability, but will also make our clean energy future much more affordable.”

LADWP is the largest municipal utility in North America and is one of the GHC’s founding supporters. Others include major renewable energy developers including Intersect Power and 8minute Solar Energy, as well as gas distribution utility, SoCalGas.

The GHC’s first initiative is to support the conversion of Intermountain Power Project (IPP), an 1,800 MW coal-fired generator located in Delta, Utah. Owned by Intermountain Power Agency (IPA), the plan is to convert IPP to an 840 MW combined cycle gas turbine that will be capable of using a blend of natural gas and 30% green hydrogen in 2025, ultimately increasing that percentage to 100% by 2045. The green hydrogen used by the new power plant will be produced exclusively by electrolysis using renewable energy.

The GHC plans to also leverage the IPP conversion to establish market mechanisms for a regional renewable reliability reserve for the Western US. IPP’s convenient Utah location on top of the Western US’s largest underground salt formation, and need for long term storage, will enable the establishment of a low-cost seasonal green hydrogen renewable energy storage capability.

According to Rob Simmons, interim executive director of the Utah Governor's Office of Energy Development (OED), “Governor Herbert continues to place great emphasis on identifying next-generation solutions for powering a resilient, affordable and cleaner energy future for decades to come. OED is proud to be at the forefront in creating opportunities for dialogue and partnerships locally and globally to advance hydrogen innovation and development for a brighter energy future."

The GHC will also work to help address fundamental roadblocks to large-scale green hydrogen adoption, including establishing evaluation and procurement frameworks for the costs/benefits of green hydrogen, establishing long-term contracts and other commercial mechanisms, reducing green hydrogen transmission and distribution costs, and establishing renewable energy credit accounting for green hydrogen toward meeting clean energy policy goals.

“An attractive, bankable value proposition for green hydrogen is possible with appropriate market design,” says Jon Wellinghoff, former FERC Chairman and founding board member of the GHC. “For example, compensation mechanisms for renewable reliability, including multi-day and seasonal energy storage services, need to be developed.”

Says Dr. Tom Buttgenbach, President and CEO of 8minute Solar Energy, “We have demonstrated with LADWP that it is possible to generate solar power below 2 cents/KWh. Soon we will be able to utilize virtually free energy from nearby solar power plants that would have otherwise been curtailed, to make low cost green hydrogen via electrolysis.”

Green hydrogen also represents an opportunity to dramatically expand the potential for renewable power into other sectors.

“As solar and wind are now the lowest cost forms of energy on the earth, we must now find ways to insert them into new areas of the energy supply chain outside of the electric power sector,” says Sheldon Kimber, CEO of Intersect Power. “Hydrogen produced from renewable power is the most scalable and impactful way to do that.”

Lin sees this kind of initiative as just the beginning. “Green hydrogen goes beyond power; it has the potential to decarbonize very energy-intensive, hard-to-electrify sectors such as aviation, steel and cement making, agriculture, and shipping. It’s a game-changer in our fight against climate change.”

About Green Hydrogen Coalition
Founded in 2019, the Green Hydrogen Coalition (GHC) is a fiscally sponsored project of Community Initiatives, a 501c3 non-profit organization. The GHC’s mission is to facilitate policies and practices that will advance green hydrogen production and use in all sectors where it will accelerate a carbon free energy future. The GHC focuses on building top-down momentum for scalable green hydrogen projects that leverage multi-sector opportunities to simultaneously scale supply and demand. Visit www.ghcoalition.org.

About LADWP
The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) is the nation’s largest municipal utility, with a 7,850 megawatt (MW) electric capacity and serving an average of 466 million gallons of water per day to the 4 million residents of the City of Los Angeles, its businesses and visitors. For more than 100 years, LADWP has provided the city with reliable water and power service in a cost effective and environmentally responsible manner.

About 8minute Solar Energy
8minute Solar Energy ("8minute") is the largest privately-held developer of solar PV and storage projects in the United States. Founded a decade ago by President and CEO Dr. Tom Buttgenbach, 8minute has over 15 GW of solar and storage projects under development in the United States, with more than 2 GW of solar power plants now in operation. The company holds many industry records, including the development of the largest solar plant in operation in the nation, the 800 MW Mount Signal solar farm in California, the 500MW Springbok Solar Farm, the first operational solar plant in the US to beat fossil fuel prices, as well as the 700 MW Eland Solar Energy and Storage Center, which currently is the lowest cost PPA for a new generation of fully dispatchable solar plus storage baseload power plants with 1200 MWh of energy storage at a price below 4 cents/kWh. 8minute is a solar industry leader in technology, engineering, and development innovations—with a team that has a track record of delivering above-market profitability and strong financial returns on utility-scale solar and storage projects. For more information, please visit www.8minute.com.

About Intersect Power
Founded in 2016, Intersect Power is an innovative renewable energy development company providing utility-scale power to wholesale customers and markets, delivering value and viability to both energy buyers and asset owners. The company brings financial and power market experience and sophistication to the development of renewable energy assets from initial idea to construction, including all aspects of siting, permitting, interconnection, power marketing, procurement, finance and operations. Intersect Power has more than 1.7 GWDC of contracted, late-stage solar projects and another 3 GWDC of early- to mid-stage pipeline across California and Texas. For more information, visit www.intersectpower.com. READ MORE includes link to presentation.

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