Chevron , through its subsidiary Chevron New Energies, has begun construction of a green hydrogen production plant in Utah , United States. According to a report from the New York Times , the company, in partnership with Mitsubishi Power Americas, hopes to store hydrogen in salt caverns, to produce electricity at a thermal plant in the region.
The project, scheduled to operate in 2025, is run by a joint venture between the two companies, Aces Delta, and is designed to convert and store up to 100 tons per day of green hydrogen, produced via electrolysis.
The idea is that the stored hydrogen can function as a battery and, when used in thermal power, can compensate for the intermittency of renewable energies, which cannot dispatch energy 100% of the time.
The Intermountain Power Agency is responsible for building the new thermal plant that will receive the hydrogen – expected to come into operation in 2025 –, thus replacing the demand from the current coal plant that serves the region. The new plant will run on 30% hydrogen and the remainder natural gas .
“It’s a bit of a paradigm shift (…) We’re making hydrogen as an energy storage carrier,” John Ward, a spokesman for the Intermountain Power Agency, told the NYT .
Hydrogen incentives
The Chevron project benefited from US$504 million in credits from the United States Department of Energy (DoE), within the country’s clean hydrogen incentive program.
Recently, the US announced clean hydrogen hubs , which will receive $7 billion in incentives, as provided for in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act . The state of Utah is not included.
The oil company is also developing, together with Air Liquide, and other companies, a joint study for the production of hydrogen and ammonia (via electrolysis and natural gas with carbon capture and storage) along the US Gulf Coast.
The facility could support industrial decarbonization and mobility in the region, as well as enable the export of clean ammonia.
Another Chevron partnership involves Caterpillar’s Solar Turbines, which aims to produce turbine engines powered by hydrogen. Mixing hydrogen with fossil fuels could help reduce greenhouse gas emissions