No hydrogen is currently produced within the city or the county for which the city is the county seat. The H2 Twin Cities program would allow us to develop a realistic plan for small-scale, onsite production and usage of hydrogen primarily for residential/commercial applications. Such applications may electrolyze water or convert natural gas into hydrogen. It is likely that within our broader region, the majority of hydrogen will be derived from Marcellus shale gas by large-scale petrochemical industries such as Shell, which is already building an ethylene cracker plant about 100 miles to the north in Beaver County, Pennsylvania.
Morgantown currently consumes no hydrogen. The H2 Twin Cities program would allow us to develop a realistic plan for small-scale, onsite production and usage of hydrogen at a scale of approximately 180 kg of hydrogen per household per year for residential and commercial applications.
a. Solar
b. Wind
g. Fossil with CCS
a. Solar
b. Wind
g. Fossil with CCS
g. Other- Please Specify Below
Prior experience with a hydrogen production and refueling station
d. Other- please specify below
Some previous experience with transportation, but no sectors currently use hydrogen
The City of Morgantown signed on to the 2005 U.S. Mayors’ Climate Protection Agreement. In 2017, the City committed to uphold the United States greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets under the Paris Climate Agreement, with the goal to reduce emissions by more than one-quarter by 2025. Many of the City’s efforts are spearheaded by the Morgantown Municipal Green Team, which the City established to advise the City Manager and City Council to provide advice on environmental sustainability in public policy, planning, and education. The Green Team has been active on these and other efforts to reduce emissions from City operations, and more broadly across the area. The Morgantown Mayor is an invited member of the National League of Cities Energy, Environmental, and Natural Resources Committee, which addresses issues related to energy and climate resilience.
Located in Morgantown, West Virginia University (WVU) is a traditional land grant Research 1 university with a mission to serve the citizens of the state of West Virginia through research, teaching, and service. In the area of hydrogen research, WVU has one of the largest faculty groups doing hydrogen Solid Oxide Fuel Cell (SOFC) and Solid Oxide Electrolysis Cell (SOEC) research among universities in the United States. WVU faculty have won an R&D 100 award related to SOFC technology development, specifically interconnects for extending the operating life and stability of SOFCs. Faculty have also won a prestigious U.S. Department of Energy ARPA-E award to use shale gas to generate hydrogen and electricity using SOFCs. The ARPA-E program funds high-risk technologies with the potential to disrupt commercial markets.
Also located in the Morgantown area, the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) is one of the nation’s 17 U.S. Department of Energy national laboratories, and the only one focused on fossil energy and carbon management. Among these laboratories, NETL has the largest group of researchers dedicated to SOFC/SOEC research. NETL is currently researching hydrogen production, delivery, and storage, with ongoing activities in fuel cell development, manufacturing, systems analysis and integration, safety, standards, and education. It is exploring a mix of laboratory and field-based research focused on:
• next-generation material development to improve the performance of systems that use and transport hydrogen;
• deriving hydrogen directly from the conversion of methane into both solid carbon and hydrogen gas, together with other related carbon capture and methane-based hydrogen production technologies; and
• advanced transport and storage monitoring and data analysis.
The H2 Twin Cities Program would allow the City of Morgantown to realize its goals to reduce emissions, promote clean energy, and develop a hydrogen economy by building upon the expertise at WVU and NETL to create practical applications that benefit Morgantown and the region.
