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The 2019 Annual Progress Report summarizes fiscal year 2019 activities and accomplishments by projects funded by the U.S. Department of Energy Hydrogen and Fuel Cells Program.
The 2019 Annual Progress Report summarizes fiscal year 2019 activities and accomplishments by projects funded by the U.S. Department of Energy Hydrogen and Fuel Cells Program.
The DOE Hydrogen Program Plan provides a strategic view of how the Department conducts and coordinates hydrogen research, development, and demonstration (RD&D) activities under the DOE Hydrogen Program. With participation from the Offices of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Fossil Energy, Nuclear Energy, Electricity, Science, and ARPA-E, the DOE Hydrogen Program is a coordinated Departmental effort to advance the affordable production, transport, storage, and use of carbon-neutral hydrogen across different sectors of the economy. This version of the Plan updates and expands upon previous versions, including the Hydrogen Posture Plan and the DOE Hydrogen and Fuel Cells Program Plan, and provides a coordinated high-level summary of hydrogen-related activities across DOE.
This document summarizes peer review comments and scores for the fiscal year 2021 U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Hydrogen Program Annual Merit Review and Peer Evaluation Meeting (AMR), held virtually June 7-11, 2021. In response to direction from various stakeholders, including the National Academies, this review process provides project- and program-level evaluations of DOE-funded research, development, demonstration, and analysis of hydrogen and fuel cell technologies.
Governments and private industry around the world have established aggressive goals to achieve net-zero emissions for the power, industrial, and transportation sectors by 2050. These aggressive goals demand immediate action if we are to be successful, and they require us to think more holistically about our clean energy options. Programs within the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) are addressing these holistic solutions. Traditionally, electricity generation and management and meeting energy demands for industry and transportation are considered independently. As we seek to achieve net-zero, we need to reassess energy demands. When we consider overall energy use, only one-third is in the form of electricity. Additional energy demands are in the form of heat or steam for industrial processes, as well as transportation. These sectors are much harder to abate, and electrification may not be the best option. Reducing environmental emissions at an affordable cost, while maintaining grid reliability and resilience, will require us to use all of the clean energy resources that we have available. That means coordinating the use of nuclear, renewables, and fossil fuels with carbon capture to meet growing demands for electricity, industrial applications, and mobility. The DOE Office of Nuclear Energy (DOE-NE) program on Integrated Energy Systems (IES) is led by researchers at Idaho National Laboratory (INL) and work is conducted in partnership with an array of other DOE laboratories, industry, and academia. The primary focus of IES research is to assess the technical and economic potential of IES to enhance the flexibility and utilization of nuclear reactors working alongside renewable generators to meet an array of energy demands—thereby maximizing the utilization of clean energy resources across all energy sectors. Various energy applications and product streams beyond electricity are being evaluated, ranging from generation of potable water to production of hydrogen, fertilizers, synthetic fuels, and chemicals. The DOE-NE program additionally partners with the Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies Office under the DOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy to jointly fund the development of analysis tools, technologies, and nuclear-integrated hydrogen demonstration projects. This presentation highlights the wide array of R&D being conducted across multiple DOE-funded programs to develop and deploy nuclear-based IES that will be key to achieving our net-zero goals. By working with key collaborators in the nuclear industry, analytical studies are now becoming a reality in demonstration projects.
Governments and private industry around the world have established aggressive goals to achieve net-zero emissions for the power, industrial, and transportation sectors by 2050. These aggressive goals demand immediate action if we are to be successful, and they require us to think more holistically about our clean energy options. Programs within the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) are addressing these holistic solutions. Traditionally, electricity generation and management and meeting energy demands for industry and transportation are considered independently. As we seek to achieve net-zero, we need to reassess energy demands. When we consider overall energy use, only one-third is in the form of electricity. Additional energy demands are in the form of heat or steam for industrial processes, as well as transportation. These sectors are much harder to abate, and electrification may not be the best option. Reducing environmental emissions at an affordable cost, while maintaining grid reliability and resilience, will require us to use all of the clean energy resources that we have available. That means coordinating the use of nuclear, renewables, and fossil fuels with carbon capture to meet growing demands for electricity, industrial applications, and mobility. The DOE Office of Nuclear Energy (DOE-NE) program on Integrated Energy Systems (IES) is led by researchers at Idaho National Laboratory (INL) and work is conducted in partnership with an array of other DOE laboratories, industry, and academia. The primary focus of IES research is to assess the technical and economic potential of IES to enhance the flexibility and utilization of nuclear reactors working alongside renewable generators to meet an array of energy demands—thereby maximizing the utilization of clean energy resources across all energy sectors. Various energy applications and product streams beyond electricity are being evaluated, ranging from generation of potable water to production of hydrogen, fertilizers, synthetic fuels, and chemicals. The DOE-NE program additionally partners with the Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies Office under the DOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy to jointly fund the development of analysis tools, technologies, and nuclear-integrated hydrogen demonstration projects. This presentation highlights the wide array of R&D being conducted across multiple DOE-funded programs to develop and deploy nuclear-based IES that will be key to achieving our net-zero goals. By working with key collaborators in the nuclear industry, analytical studies are now becoming a reality in demonstration projects. The presentation specifically focuses on motivations for the paradigm shift in how nuclear energy is deployed and used, opportunities for nuclear energy to support an array of non-electric application, integration options, computational tools and experimental systems to support evaluation and to accelerate deployment, and industry partnerships.
Governments and private industry around the world have established aggressive goals to achieve net-zero emissions for the power, industrial, and transportation sectors by 2050. These aggressive goals demand immediate action if we are to be successful, and they require us to think more holistically about our clean energy options. Programs within the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) are addressing these holistic solutions. Traditionally, electricity generation and management are considered independently from meeting energy demands for industry and transportation. As we seek to eliminate emissions across all energy use sectors we need to reassess how energy demands are met. When we consider overall energy use, only one-third is in the form of electricity. Additional energy demands are in the form of heat or steam for industrial processes, in addition to direct fuel use for transportation. These sectors are much harder to abate, and electrification may not be the best option. Reducing environmental emissions at an affordable cost, while maintaining grid reliability and resilience, will require us to leverage all of the clean energy resources available. The DOE Office of Nuclear Energy (DOE-NE) program on Integrated Energy Systems (IES) is led by researchers at Idaho National Laboratory (INL), and work is conducted in partnership with an array of other DOE laboratories, industry, and academia. The primary focus of IES research is to assess the technical and economic potential of nuclear-driven IES to enhance the flexibility and utilization of nuclear reactors working alongside renewable generators to meet an array of energy demands—thereby maximizing the utilization of clean energy resources across all energy sectors. Various energy applications and product streams beyond electricity are being evaluated, ranging from generation of potable water to production of hydrogen, fertilizers, synthetic fuels, and various chemicals. The DOE-NE program additionally partners with the Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies Office under the DOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy to jointly fund the development of analysis tools, technologies, and nuclear-integrated hydrogen demonstration projects. This presentation will highlight the wide array of R&D being conducted across multiple DOE-funded programs to develop and deploy nuclear-based IES that will be key to achieving our net-zero goals. By working with key collaborators in the nuclear industry, analytical studies are now becoming a reality in demonstration projects.
The DOE Office of Nuclear Energy (DOE-NE) program on Integrated Energy Systems (IES) is led by researchers at Idaho National Laboratory (INL), and work is conducted in partnership with an array of other DOE laboratories, industry, and academia. IES research and development activities are additionally complimented by the DOE-NE Light Water Reactor Sustainability (LWRS) program, where work under the Flexible Plant Operations & Generation pathway supports analysis of opportunities for non-electric applications of current fleet nuclear plants and collaborates with multiple plants on near-term hydrogen production demonstration opportunities. The DOE-NE programs additionally partner with the Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies Office under the DOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy to jointly fund the development of analysis tools, technologies, and nuclear-integrated hydrogen demonstration projects. This document provides a brief, high-level summary of IES work as contribution to the annual report for the Global National Laboratories Consortium on IES.
The H2@Scale program of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Fuel Cell Technologies Office is supporting work on the hydrogen compatibility of polymers to improve the durability and reliability of materials for hydrogen infrastructure. The hydrogen compatibility program (H-Mat) seeks “to address the challenges of hydrogen degradation by elucidating the mechanisms of hydrogen-materials interactions with the goal of providing science-based strategies to design materials, (micro)structures, and morphology with improved resistance to hydrogen degradation.” This research has observed interactions of hydrogen and pressure with model rubber-material compounds resulting in volume change and compression-set differences in the materials. The materials were investigated using helium-ion microscopy (HeIM), which revealed significant morphological changes in the plasticizer-incorporating compounds after exposure, as evidenced by time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry. Additional studies using transmission electron microscopy and nuclear magnetic resonance were performed to correlate morphological change to potential chemical change in the materials.
The purpose of this project is to build a fuel cell prototype that demonstrates high temperature proton exchange membrane fuel cell technology (HT PEMFC) commercial readiness. It advances from a technology baseline established in a prior CRADA in which these same Parties collaborated during the years 2020-2024. These efforts are aligned with the intentions of the DOE Hydrogen Fuel Cell Technology Office (HFTO) L’Innovator Pilot Program. Participant observes that its US-based competitive advantage may be improved by further optimizing Laboratory inventions. This CRADA is intended to further improve National Laboratory compositions and to develop commercial HT PEMFC membrane electrode assemblies (MEAs) that perform over a range of operating temperatures and relative humidity, that generate power from both low grade and pure hydrogen, and that are resistant to air impurities. Participant’s goal is to advance the commercial competitiveness of National Laboratory technologies in fuel cell products for heavy-duty truck integrators, for stationary power generation, marine applications, and for emerging interest from commercial aviation. The Parties will collaborate on producing a HT PEMFC MEA that integrates LANL ion pair technology and Brookhaven catalyst technology. The Laboratories plan to research and develop compositions for testing and evaluation. The participant will manufacture multiple MEAs based on the Laboratory compositions and will enable selected customers to validate performance characteristics. The Laboratories will convey to Participant the methods of making the National Laboratory compositions such that Participant may reproduce and then scale Laboratory methods into commercial production. Throughout the project, the Laboratories and Participant will iteratively test and optimize the compositions of materials of the MEAs, intending to optimize characteristics such as power density and lifecycle durability. Participant’s intended customers include fuel cells for large trucks, aviation, power back up, marine, and portable power.
This document summarizes peer review comments and scores for the fiscal year 2023 U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Hydrogen Program Annual Merit Review and Peer Evaluation Meeting (AMR), held June 6-9, 2023. This review process provides project- and program-level evaluations of DOE-funded research, development, demonstration, and analysis of hydrogen and fuel cell technologies.
Comprehensive, concerted efforts supported by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies Office (HFTO) are advancing research and development to demonstrate clean hydrogen production and industrial decarbonization pathways. These pathways enable an economically competitive and environmentally beneficial future energy system across sectors and can address specific applications that are difficult to decarbonize. NREL's research accelerates development, integration, and scale up of hydrogen and fuel cell technologies to enable widespread deployment across multiple energy sectors. Our work helps industry overcome technical challenges and supports DOE's H2@Scale vision for clean hydrogen across multiple applications and economic sectors. We also bridge technologies with other research areas across the lab and through multiple DOE and national lab research initiatives, consortia, and collaborations including: the Hydrogen Energy Earthshot, H2@Scale, National Clean Hydrogen Strategy and Roadmap, H2NEW: Hydrogen from Next-generation Electrolyzers of Water Consortium, HydroGEN: Advanced Water Splitting Materials Consortium, HyMARC Hydrogen Materials Advanced Research Consortium.
National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) provides system-level process, cost, and market analyses on solid oxide cell (SOC) based technologies. Specifically, techno-economic analyses (TEA), market assessments, and other technology evaluations serve to guide the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management (FECM) Reversible Solid Oxide Fuel Cell (R-SOFC) Program technology goals and objectives. These studies are key to describing how the technologies contribute to improving domestic energy infrastructure in a clean, efficient manner. This effort focuses on hydrogen generation technologies, which have received recent attention due to their potential role in economy-wide decarbonization. In particular, the study is part of a series of investigations at NETL that seek to understand the techno-economic impacts of including SOC technology in energy production, hydrogen production, and/or storage configurations. The objective of this study is to establish a detailed TEA to assess the effectiveness of incremental technology improvements needed for solid oxide electrolysis cell (SOEC) technology to achieve the U.S. DOE’s Hydrogen Shot goal of hydrogen production at less than $1 per kilogram. To take advantage of the benefits of economies of scale, the SOEC hydrogen facilities are sized to produce ≈250,000 metric tons of hydrogen annually with an electrolysis load of one gigawatt (direct current). Some additional critical assumptions include stacks that operate near the thermo-neutral voltage of 1.28 V to avoid adverse thermal gradients, all necessary steam and heat is generated by electric boilers and heaters to enable green hydrogen production, and an air sweep is used to control the oxygen concentration in the air electrode exhaust stream. System efficiency and levelized costs of hydrogen (LCOH) for each case are presented.
Presentation summarizing MEA manufacturing R&D project presented during DOE Hydrogen Program 2023 Annual Merit Review and Peer Evaluation Meeting.
Under the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, the Vehicle Technologies Office (VTO) invests in research on technologies and innovations, including advanced batteries and electrification; engines and fuels, materials, and energy-efficient mobility systems; hydrogen production, delivery, and storage; and fuel cells. This report documents the estimated benefits of successfully developing and implementing these technologies (the “Program Success” case) relative to a base case (the “No Program” case). The Program Success case represents a future with successful implementation of VTO technologies. The No Program case represents a future in which there is no contribution after Fiscal Year (FY) 2020 by VTO to these technologies. Results presented here are not intended to be predictions. Instead, they represent possible future market outcomes, predicated on assumed technological progress and other future conditions.
An overview of NETL's Gasification Systems R&D was provided at DOE's Hydrogen and Fuel Cells Technology Office (HFTO) Annual Merit Review (AMR) on May 7, 2024, in Arlington, VA. The objective of the Advanced Reaction Systems Portfolio is to design, develop, and analyze technologies to support the mission of the Gasification Program to enable the use of diverse feedstocks to produce hydrogen and other value-added products with net-zero greenhouse gas emissions.
The DOE ARPA-E REEACH program [1] has enabled this Phase 1 study that conceptualizes a commercial 154 passenger electric aircraft using renewable aviation fuel for range extension while meeting similar mission performance levels as current commercial aircraft. Commercial aviation accounts for about 2.5% of global CO2 emissions, and close to 5% of overall anthropogenic climate change due to the added accounting of contrail’s effects [2]. The sector has adopted a goal of carbon neutrality by 2050 [3]. 110 nations, and recently the new US administration, have embarked on work to address this important challenge. The US DOE has released a roadmap to enable the further development of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) in the hopes that it could meet all of aviation’s fuel needs by 2050 [4]. However, SAF fuel price and sufficient future feedstock availability remains a concern [5]. Considering the first commercial biofuel flight demonstration 14 years ago [6] and that SAF still only comprises less than 0.1% of jet fuel use, the question arises as how it can ramp up to 100% use in the next 27 years. One option that has the potential to substantially reduce the need for SAF is to implement light-weight Solid Oxide Fuel Cells (SOFCs) that can efficiently utilize SAF or other sulfur-free hydrocarbon fuels. As opposed to lower temperature PEM (Proton Exchange Membrane) fuel cells that can use high-purity hydrogen, SOFC’s fuels are very flexible, ranging from low cost liquefied natural gas (LNG), renewable liquefied natural gas (RLNG), to SAF, to generate clean electrical power for use in aviation propulsion and auxiliary power units [7] [8]. Research progress is needed to enable SOFCs to achieve 3.0 kW/kg power density, making them viable for aviation [9]. The DOE’s Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-E) has therefore initiated an aviation SOFC R&D program that is anticipated to dramatically reduce aircraft fuel use though the implementation of “Range Extenders for Electric Aviation with low Carbon and High efficiency” (REEACH) [1] for medium range commercial aircraft. This report summarizes the progress during phase 1 of the REEACH program.
This document summarizes peer review comments and scores for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Hydrogen Program 2022 Annual Merit Review and Peer Evaluation Meeting (AMR), held virtually June 6-8, 2022. The report also provides a brief overview of the Program, highlights key accomplishments since the previous AMR (held in June 2021), and summarizes activities and accomplishments within each Program office. Five Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies Office subprogram chapters provide summaries of key activities and accomplishments since the preceding AMR, summaries of projects presented orally during this year's AMR, and a summary of peer reviewer comments on the subprogram.