Who Had Inexperienced Hydrogen On Their Mississippi Bingo Card This 12 months?

Join each day information updates from CleanTechnica on e-mail. Or observe us on Google Information!

The US state of Mississippi has not been an excellent buddy to renewable power, which makes it a considerably bizarre place to construct a big new inexperienced hydrogen facility. In spite of everything, inexperienced hydrogen requires photo voltaic arrays, wind farms, or different renewable power amenities, of which Mississippi has only a few. Nonetheless, the inexperienced hydrogen wheels are in movement and the undertaking developer, the startup Hy Stor Power, has simply nailed down a key partnership with the worldwide agency Schneider Electrical to maintain them in movement.

Inexperienced Hydrogen Taking Root In Mississippi, Renewable Power Or Not

For these of you new to the subject, inexperienced hydrogen refers to hydrogen constructed from renewable sources. Inexperienced hydrogen is a brand new business and to this point a lot of the investor exercise in that area has centered on electrolysis programs that deploy wind or solar energy to jolt hydrogen free from water.

That would appear to depart Mississippi out within the chilly. As with a lot of the Southeast, the state’s wind sources are typically not optimum for business growth below the present state of the know-how, which partly explains why there are not any wind farms in Mississippi.

The state’s photo voltaic profile is nearly as lackluster. In response to info compiled by the Photo voltaic Power Industries Affiliation, Mississippi has a complete of 576 megawatts in put in photo voltaic capability, putting it down at a lowly thirty sixth in a state-by-state rating.

On the intense facet, although, SEIA tasks that Mississippi will acquire one other 2,215 megawatts over the following 5 years, putting it at a extra respectable #24 for photo voltaic progress.

As well as, the wind farm logjam seems to be busting open. Although many of the state is wind-poor, business growth is viable in some areas. Final 12 months the agency AES introduced plans to assemble Mississippi’s first utility scale wind farm, Delta Wind, with a capability of 184.5 megawatts. The generators shall be positioned on working farms in Tunica County, within the northwest nook of the state the place wind sources are pretty first rate. AES expects the farmers to proceed to rising rice, soybeans, corn and wheat across the generators.

The place Is All The Offshore Wind?

Apparently Hy Stor is anticipating that its inexperienced hydrogen plans will assist stimulate extra curiosity in Mississippi amongst wind and photo voltaic power buyers.

In a very attention-grabbing twist, offshore wind could also be in play. At the least, that’s what an artist had in thoughts after they created a rendering of the inexperienced hydrogen hub for Hy Stor (see picture above).

That’s attention-grabbing as a result of wind sources alongside Mississippi’s coast on the Gulf of Mexico are usually not significantly optimum. Nevertheless, they’re not less than pretty much as good as these in Louisiana, and Louisiana is pursuing new alternatives for offshore wind growth.

It stays to be seen if Mississippi exploits its offshore wind sources. The Division of the Inside manages offshore leases in federal waters via the Bureau of Ocean Power Administration. The workplace has auctioned Gulf of Mexico leases for Texas and Louisiana, however as of this writing it has not outlined offshore lease areas for Mississippi.

Lengthy Length Power Storage Is The Inexperienced Hydrogen Key

One factor that Mississippi does have is an present platform for giant scale, low price hydrogen storage, and that’s the featured component in Hy Stor’s inexperienced hydrogen plans.

Hy Stor cites the state’s “naturally occurring underground salt formations that may help the event of enormous caverns, permitting for the secure and efficient storage of a number of years’ price of inexperienced hydrogen” because the deciding component in its selection of location.

Hy Retailer takes word of different benefits to constructing a inexperienced hydrogen hub in Mississippi. Along with an optimistic outlook on the longer term availability of wind and solar energy within the state, Hy Stor additionally notes that the hub will occupy a strategic location “with proximity to present distribution infrastructure resembling interstate fuel transportation pipelines and electrical transmission strains, in addition to interstate highways, rail strains, deepwater ports, and the Mississippi River.”

As for the place precisely is that this strategic location, the Hy Stor web site shouldn’t be significantly forthcoming. Nevertheless, in July of 2022, the coastal county of Hancock let slip some particulars about strategic partnership between Hy Retailer and the Hancock County Port and Harbor Fee.

The plan is to leverage a big bulk storage alternative within the type of the Richton Dome, a pure salt cave close to Hattiesburg in Perry County, about 100 miles north of the coast.

“Mississippi was a beforehand chosen growth location for the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve, and its central U.S. and Gulf Coast location will function a Strategic Hydrogen Reserve linked to new, devoted, twin bi-directional pipelines that can lengthen from Richton in Perry County to Hancock County and the Port of Bienville,” Hancock County explains.

“This may enable Mississippi to function a U.S. centrally positioned and extremely linked strategic hydrogen reserve,” they add, noting that the Richton dome will in the end join with different domes within the area to create a sprawling inexperienced hydrogen storage community.

Chip in a couple of {dollars} a month to assist help unbiased cleantech protection that helps to speed up the cleantech revolution!

Inexperienced Hydrogen In Mississippi: By no means Give Up, By no means Give up

For those who’re questioning why the Mississippi hub was not chosen for funding via the Power Division’s new $8 billion Regional Clear Hydrogen Hub program, that’s a superb query. You’ll should ask the Power Division. We’re guessing that the choice course of prioritized tasks with multi-state partnerships, pushing single-state initiatives down a notch.

Additionally, the Power Division program was funded via the Bipartisan Infrastructure Regulation, which stipulates a various hydrogen provide chain. Specifically, BIL requires not less than two of the hubs to incorporate pure fuel. That cuts into alternatives for different tasks. Of the seven tasks that did make the Power Division minimize, just one — the Pacific Northwest Hydrogen Hub — is targeted purely on inexperienced hydrogen from electrolysis.

Apparently the snub didn’t decelerate Hy Retailer. The corporate introduced its new partnership with Schneider Electrical earlier this week, on March 20, with a concentrate on first-of-its-kind purposes.

“Innovating each the bodily and digital operation of renewable and storage belongings is a vital a part of the power transition,” famous Hy Stor CEO and founder Laura Luce in a press assertion

“We’re grateful to have a digital companion that understands the significance of deploying climate-aligned renewable hydrogen options and sit up for deploying first-of-its-kind, 100% renewable, fossil-free power that’s dispatchable to our clients 24/7,” Luce added.

If all this local weather discuss appears slightly misplaced in a Republican-led state with a fame for proper wing extremism, nicely, it’s.

Nevertheless, the inexperienced hydrogen undertaking can be per a multi-state sample during which Republican officers have taken steps to thwart renewable power funding on normal rules, whilst their very own financial growth businesses spend public {dollars} to incentivize new EV battery factories and different climate-aligned industries.

Maybe the brand new inexperienced hydrogen hub might additionally assist encourage state officers to behave on EV adoption and different parts of the power transition, so keep tuned for extra on that.

Comply with me @tinamcasey on Bluesky, Threads, Put up, and LinkedIn.

Picture: A brand new inexperienced hydrogen hub will assist Mississippi step up its position in the power transition, prepared or not (courtesy of Hy Stor).