SoCalGas launches green hydrogen storage pilot project in the US

Southern California Gas Company seeks to identify various commercial applications for H2 storage.

Southern California Gas Company (SoCalGas) is launching a new pilot project for the purpose of identifying new commercial applications for green hydrogen storage.

SoCalGas has partnered with GKN Hydrogen and the US National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

For this new pilot project, SoCalGas is collaborating with GKN Hydrogen, a green hydrogen producer from Bonn, Germany, as well as with the US National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). They are seeking to move forward on a project that will be groundbreaking in renewable H2 as a megawatt scale clean energy storage resource.

The US Department of Energy (DoE) has provided $1.7 million in funding and SoCalGas has provided additional support including $400,000. The pilot will bring together two of GKN Hydrogen’s HY2MEGA H2 storage subsystems with 500 kilograms of capacity for H2 storage. They will be connected with an electrolyzer and fuel cell at the NREL Flatirons Campus located in Colorado near Boulder.

The electrolyzer will be powered by renewable energy sources to produce the green hydrogen for storage.

The green H2 will be stored in a solid state under low pressure in HY2MEGA hydrogen storage tank, which is a modular metal hydride technology solution which has been under development for about ten years. According to GKN Hydrogen, it is among the safest methods of H2 storage.

From there, the fuel cell will be able to use the H2 for the production of clean, carbon emission-free electricity.

“To accelerate the energy transition hydrogen cannot just be part of the discussion, it must be part of the solution,” said GKN Hydrogen CEO Bruno Biasiotta. “This project will demonstrate that large scale green hydrogen storage with HY2MEGA can be used to help decarbonise and accelerate the shift to cleaner fuels.”

SoCalGas will provide R&D and demonstration funding, which will make it possible for the utility to assist and identify possible applications for the green H2 storage.

“SoCalGas will leverage the large-scale hydrogen storage capabilities of GKN Hydrogen’s HY2MEGA from this project to help accelerate the commercialisation and deployment of green hydrogen projects,” said SoCalGas vice president of clean energy innovations Neil Navin.