Advancing Next-Generation Hydrogen Energy Storage Technology for Clean Power

Hydrogen has the potential to enable long-duration energy storage and decarbonize the industrial and power generation sectors, helping to meet the growing U.S. market demand for cleaner electricity. Innovative energy storage technologies combined with fossil energy assets can deliver more reliable and affordable energy, a cleaner environment, and stronger power infrastructure.

A GTI Energy-led team, including Southern Company, Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E), and the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) demonstrated technology to store energy as “blue” hydrogen and used it for load-following in an existing natural gas combined cycle (NGCC) plant with a hydrogen-fired duct burner in a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)-funded project. Hydrogen storage and discharge rates were coupled to follow daily power demand fluctuations from variable renewable energy, increasing the plant capacity factor while reducing emissions.

Researchers performed feasibility and techno-economic studies, and results indicate that high-efficiency production using GTI Energy’s patented hydrogen generation technology would achieve a greater than 95% rate of carbon capture at low cost.

A Preliminary Front End Engineering Design (Pre-FEED) study of this asset-integrated hydrogen production and storage system demonstrated production and intermediate duration storage of more than 54 megawatt-hours of energy and the use of this hydrogen to address power output as electricity demand fluctuates in an NGCC power plant operated by Southern Company subsidiary Alabama Power.

GTI Energy’s patented low-cost hydrogen generation technology that inherently captures carbon is being piloted in a 1-tonne per day capacity at Cranfield University in the UK in the Hydrogen by Sorbent Enhanced Steam Reforming (HyPER) project. A pilot plant at GTI Energy’s Des Plaines campus validated engineering and technology predictions and demonstrated a disruptive breakthrough: our generation technology can make high-purity hydrogen while at the same time capturing and delivering high-purity CO₂.