Heralded as one of the largest green hydrogen projects in the U.S., Douglas County PUD No. 1 on March 8 broke ground on a 5-MW hydrogen generation and storage pilot project in central Washington state that will harness excess hydropower from the Columbia River and convert it into renewable hydrogen.
The initial, roughly $20 million project, scheduled for completion later in 2021, will rely on the public utility district's Wells hydroelectric facility to supply electricity to create hydrogen through the process of electrolysis, using a machine purchased from Cummins Inc. for roughly $9.5 million.
The utility will store the hydrogen in tanks and then deliver it by truck to customers, the first of which is the Pacific Northwest's inaugural hydrogen refueling station on Interstate-5.
"We are building this as a pilot in hopes that, if it takes off, we will continue to produce hydrogen here, even more hydrogen potentially in the future than the 5 MW and 2 tons [of hydrogen] a day that the initial production site will be capable of producing," Gary Ivory, the PUD's general manager, said at a groundbreaking event.
Known as the Renewable Hydrogen Demonstration Project, it is one of a host of projects underway around the world to generate hydrogen with renewable energy rather than natural gas, the feedstock most commonly used to produce hydrogen today. Among those is another Northwest project in Eugene, Ore., involving Northwest Natural Holding Co. and the Eugene Water & Electric Board.
Overall, however, hydrogen investment in the United States lags behind the European Union.
Possible expansion
The Douglas County PUD is prepared to expand the facility to more than 20 MW if the first phase proves successful, according to utility spokesperson Meaghan Vibbert.
"The product is obviously a great benefit, but, really, the main interest is in the operational efficiency we will see at the Wells project," Vibbert said in an interview.
That includes avoiding the sale of hydropower at negative prices when supplies exceed demand and relying on the electrolyzer to respond to ramping needs that would otherwise be performed by adjusting Wells' generating units.
A 2019 state law that gave public utilities the ability to produce and distribute hydrogen made with renewable resources enabled the project to proceed. Other participants in the pilot include the Bonneville Environmental Foundation, the Renewable Hydrogen Alliance and Toyota Motor North America Inc.
In addition, the Centralia Coal Transition Grants Energy Technology Board pitched in $1.88 million for the project. Operated by an affiliate of TransAlta Corp., which owns the Centralia power plant, the state's last coal-fired generating station, the board was created by a 2011 agreement with the state of Washington to close the coal plant by December 2025.
