McDermott International announced it has joined a consortium of public, private and academic partners collaborating on a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) project—Demonstration and Framework for H2@Scale in Texas and Beyond.

The project is supported by DOE’s Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies Office within the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. H2@Scale in Texas and Beyond intends to show that renewable hydrogen can be a cost-effective fuel for multiple end-use applications, including fuel cell electric vehicles, when coupled with large, baseload consumers that use hydrogen for clean, reliable stationary power.

McDermott’s participation will add additional expertise to the team’s capabilities in the delivery of integrated energy infrastructure and underscores McDermott’s commitment in advancing hydrogen as a key driver to low carbon and affordable energy. The project will leverage Texas’ extensive resources—wind power, solar energy, underground salt-dome storage formations, hydrogen pipelines, natural gas infrastructure, international port operations, and a large, concentrated industrial infrastructure—to demonstrate the potential of DOE’s H2@Scale initiative.

“McDermott recognizes that hydrogen has a very prominent role to play in the future of sustainable energy,” said Samik Mukherjee, McDermott’s Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer. “We are confident that the talent and expertise of our people, in collaboration with our partners, will accelerate momentum and unlock the meaningful progress necessary to turn aspiration into reality.”

The partnership is currently focusing on two separate initiatives:

• The University of Texas at Austin will host a first-of-its-kind integration of commercial hydrogen production, distribution, storage and use. The project partners will generate zero-carbon hydrogen onsite via electrolysis with solar and wind power and reformation of renewable natural gas from a Texas landfill. It is the first time that both sources of renewable hydrogen will be used in the same project. The hydrogen will power a stationary fuel cell to provide clean, reliable power for the Texas Advanced Computing Center and supply a hydrogen station with zero-emission fuel to fill a fleet of fuel cell electric vehicles.
• At the Port of Houston, the project team will conduct a feasibility study for scaling up hydrogen production and use. The team will assess available resources, prospective hydrogen users and delivery infrastructure, such as existing pipelines that supply hydrogen to refineries. The study will examine policies, regulations and economics so that industry can develop a strategic action plan to present to policymakers—enabling heavy-duty fuel cell transportation and energy systems.

H2@Scale in Texas and Beyond brings hydrogen industry leaders together with enthusiastic and important new participants to design, build and operate the first dedicated renewable hydrogen network. It will demonstrate infrastructure safety and reliability in a real-world situation.