The $12M H2@Scale project, funded by the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies and 18 project partners, is demonstrating integrated hydrogen production, storage, end use applications, and associated safety systems at the University of Texas at Austin’s JJ Pickle research campus. Considered a hydrogen proto-hub, the demonstration site features two electrolyzers, powered by solar and wind, and a steam methane reformer operating on renewable natural gas. Together, these three units can produce 70 kg of clean hydrogen per day. The high-purity H2 fuels a 100 kW fuel cell powering a data center and a fleet of fuel cell vehicles being driven throughout central and south-central Texas. The project also developed an economic optimization model for hydrogen infrastructure scale-up in Texas, starting in Port Houston and the Gulf Coast.

Project goals include: (1) determining how clean hydrogen production costs can be reduced to $4/kg dispensed to vehicles by using multiple generation sources and multiple co-located end uses, and (2) developing a 5-year plan (“framework”) for economically expanding Texas’ hydrogen generation, storage, and distribution assets, beginning with existing infrastructure in the Gulf Coast region.