Low-Carbon Resources Initiative

A project led by GTI Energy in partnership with EPRI, the University of California, Irvine, and The Air Conditioning, Heating, and Refrigeration Institute (AHRI) was recently awarded over $1.7 million from the California Energy Commission to evaluate the impact of use of hydrogen and hydrogen-natural gas blends on existing appliances as a potential decarbonization strategy for large commercial buildings and the industrial sector. The project seeks to identify and address key research questions and technology gaps for combustion equipment in large commercial and industrial (C&I) sectors, through techno-economic analysis, laboratory testing, simulation of combustion equipment/materials, air quality modeling, and stakeholder engagement.

LCRI is providing cost-share to support techno-economic analysis efforts that will serve as a basis for selection of C&I equipment categories and estimate lifecycle costs of avoided greenhouse gas emissions via equipment retrofits, activities that are highly aligned with ongoing research within LCRI’s End Use Technical Subcommittee. The project will establish key tiers of hydrogen blending tolerance, including maximum acceptance limits for selected equipment categories with and without retrofit.

LCRI Newsletter - April 2022

A GTI Energy-led team including EPRI, LCRI sponsor Southern Company, and Pacific Gas & Electric has been selected to receive funding from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to advance asset-integrated production and intermediate duration storage of hydrogen. Integrating hydrogen created from fossil and renewable energy can improve load loading of the electric grid and provide greater duration, reliability, and affordability to meet the growing U.S. market demand for cleaner electricity.

In this Phase 2 project the team will conduct a Preliminary Front End Engineering Design (Pre-FEED) study of a system to demonstrate storage of more than 54 megawatt-hours of energy as clean hydrogen produced using natural gas with carbon capture and storage—and its use for load-following in a natural gas combined cycle (NGCC) power plant operated by Southern Company’s subsidiary Alabama Power. LCRI is providing cost share to support this project.

LCRI Newsletter - March 2022

A white paper was recently published by the University of Texas as part of the LCRI-supported U.S. Department of Energy H2@Scale project. The paper, Hydrogen Blending in Texas Natural Gas Power Plants at Scale, assesses the suitability and implications of hydrogen blending within the existing natural gas power plant fleet in the Gulf Coast region of Texas. Results indicate that blending even relatively small amounts of hydrogen, delivered via the existing hydrogen pipeline network, in the fuel streams of existing natural gas power plants can reduce carbon emissions. Results also indicate that hydrogen blending can be economically competitive in the short term if proposed federal clean hydrogen tax credits are implemented.

This assessment was conducted as part of the H2@Scale in Texas and Beyond project, in which a renewable hydrogen energy network is being established by LCRI co-lead GTI Energy, Frontier Energy, and the University of Texas at Austin Center for Electromechanics. This demonstration will help pave the way for eventual build-out of integrated clean hydrogen networks, and includes multiple low-carbon hydrogen production technologies such as the conversion of renewable natural gas and electricity to hydrogen for use in a fuel cell for critical power generation applications, for passenger vehicle fueling, and for powering fuel cell aerial drones. The H2@Scale in Texas and Beyond project is also assessing the techno-economics of low-carbon hydrogen production, storage, delivery, and end-use for industrial and commercial applications in and around Port Houston.

LCRI Newsletter - February 2022

LCRI co-lead GTI Energy is leading the Integrated Hydrogen Energy Storage System (IHESS) project that will determine the economic and technical feasibility of combining hydrogen with natural gas to expand the hydrogen fuel capability of a major power generation facility in southeast Texas. The goal of the project is to optimize the carbon reduction potential by utilizing hydrogen from multiple sources available on the Texas hydrogen hub supply network.

The project features a dedicated hydrogen pipeline and underground storage facility, and additional high-volume blending equipment to ensure a controlled, stable blend of hydrogen and natural gas to minimize overall CO2 and other criteria emissions.

LCRI is providing cost share to assess the repeatability of this infrastructure configuration as a way to utilize hydrogen as a broad solution for energy industry decarbonization. Project partners include Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI), Linde PLC, University of Texas, Center for ElectroMechanics, Quanta Services Inc., and Entergy.

LCRI Newsletter - February 2022