US Plug mulls green ammonia shipments to Europe

HOUSTON (ICIS)–The US green hydrogen company Plug is thinking about some type of project that could develop plants in Europe that would extract hydrogen from green ammonia shipped from the US, the CEO said on Wednesday.

The extraction plants, known as ammonia crackers, could be built in the port of Antwerp-Bruges, said Andy Marsh, CEO of Plug. He made his comments at the Hydrogen North America 2022 conference, held by Reuters Events.

From Antwerp-Bruges, the hydrogen could be distributed throughout Europe.

“On paper, the math works,” Marsh said. Plug now needs to see if it would work in the real world.

Green hydrogen has become more competitive in Europe because of the spike in energy costs caused by the war between Russia and Ukraine.

The war highlighted the need for energy security, Marsh said.

Another target for US hydrogen exports is Asia. Plug is in talks with SK E&S to produce green ammonia and ship it to power plants in South Korea, he said.

The US is becoming the world’s lowest cost producer of green hydrogen, thanks to the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which provided incentives to develop green hydrogen, carbon capture and storage (CCS) and renewable energy.

The federal laws are a game changer and mark a pivot point for green hydrogen, Marsh said.

Brett Perlman, the CEO of the Center for Houston’s Future, also said the laws has made the US the lowest cost producer of green hydrogen. His organisation is an economic-development affiliate of the Greater Houston Partnership, and it is spearheading an initiative that will make the nine-county Houston area global, low-cost hydrogen hub. He anticipates that a significant portion of new hydrogen demand from the Houston area will come from exports of hydrogen, which could be shipped in the form of ammonia.

“With the IRA being announced, I think we have a great potential to bring more projects to financial closure in the coming years,” said Bill Newsom, president and CEO of Mitsubishi Power Americas. He spoke at the conference.

PLUG’S PLANS
Plug, also known as Plug Power, is a publicly traded integrated producer and seller of green hydrogen.

Plug has ambitious plans to build several green hydrogen plants in the US. These plants will rely on proton-exchange membranes (PEM), a type of electrolyser technology. Electrolysers use electricity to split water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen.

After Plug produces the hydrogen, it liquefies it and distributes it via 35 delivery trucks to its customers.

Those customers include the retailers Amazon and Walmart, which use forklifts powered by Plug’s fuel cells.

Plug has announced green-hydrogen plants in California, Georgia, Louisiana, New York and Texas. By the end of 2022, the company’s green hydrogen capacity should reach 70 tonnes/day. By the end of 2023, it should reach 200 tonnes/day.

By 2025, Plug should have 13 plants in North America with a green-hydrogen capacity of 500 tonnes/day.

Outside of the US, Plug announced a 30 tonne/day green hydrogen plant in the port of Antwerp-Bruges.

By 2028, Plug could have more than 100 tonnes/day of capacity in Europe. That same year, Plug’s global capacity could reach 1,000 tonnes/day.

Earlier this year, Plug won a contract to provide a 1GW electrolyser to H2 Energy Europe, which is developing a green hydrogen complex in Denmark. The hydrogen plan could produce up to 100,000 tonnes/year.

Marsh acknowledged that a scarcity could arise for iridium and other precious metals needed to make PEM electrolysers and fuel cells. For iridium, Plug has  plans to reduce its load by a factor of 10.

The significance of precious metals is one of the reasons why the company works with Johnson Matthey, a UK company, Marsh said.

A more immediate constraint on the hydrogen industry is the need for a national pipeline network, Marsh said. Shipping hydrogen by truck is expensive because it lacks the scale of pipelines, and the hydrogen needs to be liquefied.

GREEN HYDROGEN APPLICATIONS
Marsh noted other uses for green hydrogen in addition to Plug’s fuel-cell-powered forklifts. It could produce green steel and fertilizer.

Plug is working with MOL Group, a Hungarian refiner. Refiners use large amounts of hydrogen to produce gasoline and to remove sulphur from fuel. Renewable diesel and sustainable aviation fuel also require hydrogen to remove the oxygen from vegetable oils and animal fats.

Another use for hydrogen is blending it with natural gas to produce electricity at power plants.

MITSUBISHI POWER’S PROJECTS
Mitsubishi Power is developing several hydrogen-blending projects, some of which require it to work with untraditional partners, Newsom said.

Mitsubishi Power has entered into a strategic joint development agreement with DT Midstream, a pipeline company that would address shipping hydrogen to power plants.

Mitsubishi Power is working with another unlikely partner, Magnum Development, which will help it in developing underground green-hydrogen storage for the Intermountain Power Plant project in Delta, Utah.

The project received a $500m loan guarantee from the US Department of Energy, the first such guarantee in a decade, Newsom said.

Under the project, the last two coal plants at Intermountain will be shut down, Newsom said.

Intermountain will rely on blends of natural gas and green hydrogen to produce electricity that it would send to the Los Angeles area in California, he said.

The project will rely on salt-dome storage for the hydrogen, Newsom said. The storage has the capacity to store enough hydrogen to power the western US. In fact, Intermountain will be the world’s largest hydrogen production ad storage facility, Newsom said.

Commercial operations should start in 2025 with Intermountain burning a blend of 30% hydrogen and 70% natural gas.

In Georgia, Mitsubishi Power, Georgia Power and the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) validated hydrogen fuel blending at partial and full load on a M501G natural gas turbine at Georgia Power’s Plant McDonough-Atkinson in Smyrna, Georgia.

It was the first demonstration project to validate 20% hydrogen fuel blending in an advanced class gas turbine in North America. It was also the largest test of its kind.

In Japan, Mitsubishi Power is establishing the Takasago Hydrogen Park, which will validate hydrogen-production, power-generation and other hydrogen technologies. Ultimately, Mitsubishi Power wants to commercialise hydrogen gas turbines by 2025.

To test the turbines, the park will rely on the adjacent T-Point 2 combined cycle power plant validation facility.

T-Point 2 is verifying a JAC class turbine that will start using 30% hydrogen blends. Testing for 100% hydrogen firing of small and mid-sized turbines will be conducted using an H-25 class gas turbine.

Newsom sees decarbonisation following a roadmap to reduce and eliminate carbon emissions. The first step is replacing coal-powered generation with that from natural gas and renewable power.

To address the intermittent nature of renewable power, companies will need to develop short-term and long-term energy storage, Newsom said. Hydrogen will play an important role, because he expects its storage costs will fall below those for lithium-ion batteries. The cost advantage is even more substantial with the incentives provided by the federal laws.

“Green hydrogen is the most cost-effective form of long-duration storage,” he said.

Once industry reduces the emissions from the power grid, the next step would be to electrify anything that is feasible, Newsom said.

Sectors that are hard to abate could rely on hydrogen.

The Hydrogen North America 2022 conference runs through Thursday.

Focus article by Al Greenwood

Thumbnail shows a hydrogen truck. Image by Shutterstock.