(Credit: Pixabay)SoCalGas has proposed to develop what it says would be the largest green hydrogen energy infrastructure in the United States, which would help significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions from electric generation, industrial processes, heavy-duty trucks and other hard-to-electrify sectors.
The proposed Angeles Link in Southern California would also support further integration of renewable electricity sources such as wind and solar energy and would decrease the demand for other fossil fuels, including natural gas and diesel. SoCalGas says the effort would remove up to 3 million gallons of diesel fuel per day by replacing heavy-duty diesel trucks with hydrogen fuel cell trucks.
The utility also says it could provide enough clean fuel to convert up to four natural gas power plants to green hydrogen. The Angeles Link would produce enough green hydrogen to equal nearly a quarter of the natural gas SoCalGas currently provides.
SoCalGas is filing an application with the California Public Utilities Commission requesting approval to track costs of the Angeles Link development. The company plans a phased approach to development of the infrastructure, which includes working closely with regulators, policymakers as well as environmental, workforce and academic stakeholders.
Each stage will require regulatory review and discretionary approvals, the company says.
Green hydrogen is seen as an integral piece of reaching net zero emissions and can be especially beneficial for heavy industries such as steel and transportation. SoCalGas says it has the potential to significantly lower emissions in industries where renewable electricity cannot do it alone.
“Achieving carbon neutrality requires an integrated clean fuels network to power transportation and industries that are difficult to electrify,” says Lew Fulton, director of the Sustainable Transportation Energy Pathways Program for the Institute for Transportation Studies at University of California Davis. “This project will help develop a green hydrogen network that can deliver this energy to our nation’s largest transportation and manufacturing centers while enabling the widespread production of low-carbon, renewable electricity.”
In California, an initiative of the Green Hydrogen Coalition called HyDeal Los Angeles aims to make green hydrogen cost competitive with traditional fuels and achieve a price of $1.50 per kilogram by 2030. Another organization, the Green Hydrogen Catapult, also is working to keep the cost of the clean fuel below $2 a kilogram.
Production of green hydrogen continues to ramp up, as shown by efforts like a partnership between Bloom Energy and Heliogen, also in California, or a 2 gigawatt electrolysis plant being developed in Saudi Arabia by Thyssenkrupp Nucera. Green hydrogen and rapid implementation of electric vehicles, such as the goal to clean up heavy-duty trucks in SoCalGas’ infrastructure plan, also has the hydrogen fuel cell market to hit nearly $25 billion by 2028, according to Valuates Reports.
SoCalGas first launched a power-to-gas hydrogen demonstration project in 2015. It has 10 hydrogen pilot projects in the works, has demonstrated a hydrogen home microgrid and is testing moving hydrogen through existing natural gas infrastructure.
SoCalGas, which provides gas services to 21.8 million consumers, also has a goal of being net zero in Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions by 2045 and its Aspire 2045 sustainability strategy includes a resilient and clean gas grid.
