New York's Long Island is ideally positioned to bring to life the long-incubated dream of a cross-sector clean hydrogen economy, according to top executives at National Grid Ventures Ltd. and National Grid USA who laid out the electric and gas utility's "hydrogen hub vision" Sept. 22.

"Hydrogen has potential to decarbonize multiple sectors, including industry, power generation, transport and heating," Cordi O'Hara, president of National Grid Ventures, said during a presentation at Climate Week NYC. "Additionally, because hydrogen can be stored for days, weeks or even months, it can play a critical role in providing long duration and seasonal storage, maintaining reliability and resiliency throughout the year."

The Long Island hub would rely on excess renewable energy from some of the offshore wind farms planned in the Atlantic Ocean to make green hydrogen through the process of electrolysis, including more than 1 GW that could connect to the island by 2025, O'Hara said. In addition, the cluster would include creation of a hydrogen fueling infrastructure for transportation, especially heavy-duty vehicles.

"There's also an opportunity for hydrogen to play a role in decarbonizing buildings, being used in place of natural gas to heat homes and buildings," O'Hara said. "Hydrogen could be blended into existing gas networks, up to 20% by volume."

"We do believe that the natural gas network has a real value in the future, especially if we can blend a low-carbon fuel like hydrogen into that existing delivery network," added Rudy Wynter, president of National Grid's New York business, which includes both electric and natural gas utilities.

National Grid, an affiliate of London-based National Grid plc, is among a host of gas utilities exploring how to blend hydrogen into pipeline systems.

'Right time to begin planning'

But the vision of a clean hydrogen economy "will take significant commitment and collaboration among a range of stakeholders in government, industry, and the broader public," O'Hara said.

Critical assistance could come in the form of the $1 trillion infrastructure bill passed by the U.S. Senate in August, which includes $8 billion to create at least four regional hydrogen hubs, as well as another $1 billion for the development of electrolysis machines to make hydrogen by splitting water.

U.S. House of Representative leaders are aiming for a vote on the bill by Sept. 27.

"This shows that now is the right time to begin planning for these regional hydrogen economies," O'Hara said.

Andy Marsh, CEO of hydrogen fuel cell and electrolyzer supplier Plug Power Inc., believes tax incentives are even more important for commercialization than the creation of regional hydrogen hubs.

"When you take a look at [tax credits under consideration in Congress], that'll change it," Marsh said during a panel discussion with the National Grid executives and other hydrogen experts. "We actually need deployment and deployments at a commercial stage, so that this can become bigger, faster."

'Hydrogen must be clean'

However, the challenges associated with converting the vision of a clean hydrogen economy into reality begin with answering the question of whether hydrogen is actually clean. Several national and New York-based environmental organizations are pushing back on hydrogen use in some applications, such as burning hydrogen in power plants, because of air-quality impacts.

"First, the hydrogen must be clean," Julio Friedmann, a senior research scholar at Columbia University's Center on Global Energy Policy, said on the panel. "To get there we need standards that define what 'clean' means. And that should be something associated with real greenhouse gas emissions and associated pollution. Reasonable people can disagree but if you don't have a standard, the market doesn't know what to do."

In addition, the market needs cost-competitive large-scale supplies of equipment to produce and use hydrogen, as well as a workforce familiar with the technology.

"We need more people," Friedmann said. "We do not have enough human beings who are trained in this yet. The unions are not trained to make and use these systems. We don't have operators who are familiar with hydrogen. We don't have students who understand what hydrogen is or how to use them. We don't have regulators who are familiar with what hydrogen is."