TVA, Other Utilities Launch Southeast Hydrogen Hub Effort

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
November 4, 2022

A newly formed coalition including the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) and other major utilities recently announced its plan to pursue federal financial support for a Southeast Hydrogen Hub.

The coalition will respond to the recently announced funding opportunity from the U.S. Department of Energy, which includes $8 billion for regional hydrogen hubs and is part of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.

Along with TVA, the other members of the coalition include Dominion Energy, Duke Energy, Louisville Gas & Electric Company and Kentucky Utilities Company (LG&E and KU), Southern Company, along with Battelle and others.

Other members of the Southeast Hydrogen Hub coalition will include a growing list of hydrogen users from a variety of industries in Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee. The coalition expects its membership to grow.

Hydrogen may be poised to play a major role in addressing climate change and could be essential for each coalition member to meet its stated carbon-reduction goals.

TVA, for example, is looking to achieve 70% carbon reduction by 2030 and approximately 80% carbon reduction by 2035.

“By working together, the coalition can focus on developing scalable, integrated projects at key locations across the entire Southeast in support of these carbon-reduction goals and encourage the broad-based development of a regional energy ecosystem that will allow members to deploy hydrogen as a decarbonization solution for customers and communities,” a news release from the coalition members said.

Maine and Rhode Island recently joined a multi-state clean hydrogen hub in the New England/Mid-Atlantic region.

Earlier this year, governors of Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming have joined forces in signing a memorandum of understanding (MOU) for the development of a regional clean hydrogen hubs.

Under the MOU the states agreed to compete jointly for a portion of the $8 billion allocated in the federal Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act for hydrogen hubs.

Several West Coast utilities, including the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) and Douglas County PUD in Washington, have recently embarked on projects aimed at furthering the feasibility of using hydrogen fuels to offset the use of traditional fossil fuels.

To help public power utilities understand the potential — and the limitations — of hydrogen, and why they should get involved, the American Public Power Association developed Understanding Hydrogen: Trends and Use Cases.