Jordan Blum, editorial director, Hart Energy: We are here at CERAWeek in Houston. I'm joined by Kai Guo, the vice president of hydrogen infrastructure development at Mitsubishi Power.

Thanks so much for joining us. So you're mostly focused on the North American markets. Can I get you to give an overview of the hydrogen potential and what's in progress here?

Kai Guo, vice president of hydrogen infrastructure development, Mitsubishi Power: Absolutely. Thank you for having me here, Jordan. So Mitsubishi Power is a subsidiary of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. At its core, we are a technology solutions provider, and for my business specifically, we are the hydrogen infrastructure development group within Mitsubishi Power. Our mandate is to deliver affordable and accessible clean hydrogen to the entire North American market. So right now we're developing several large projects in North America. You probably have heard of the ACES Delta hydrogen hub in Utah. That's our flagship project, and that project is going to be 220 megawatts, about a hundred tons of clean hydrogen production per day. And we're also a part of a couple other DOE [Department of Energy] grant hub programs and we're very excited to be a part of that and we look forward to developing those projects and bringing them to the market in the coming years.

JB: Very good. How critically important are these—the DOE grants and the IRA funding—for really leveling the playing field, getting these hydrogen projects off the ground?

KG: Yeah, they are critical. They're critical. So while Mitsubishi Power is focused on the technology side in the form of developing the technology so that they are mature and they are financeable, the grant program and the IRA tax credits effectively provide the pathway to affordable clean hydrogen. With any new industry, as you know, initial costs are higher. But then over time, as we have seen from the solar and wind industry 10, 20 years ago, costs will come down quickly and dramatically. So we're hoping the same will happen in clean hydrogen, and we are very confident that with the hub programs and with the support of the DOE Loan Programs Office as well, the levelized cost of hydrogen will come down, which will allow different industries to adopt clean hydrogen as a clean fuel.

JB: Very good. And can I get you to elaborate a bit just if you want to touch on kind of the broader vision for hydrogen and also, more specifically, decarbonizing in those hard to abate areas.

KG: Absolutely. So right now we are putting some pretty large project dots on the map, if you will. The longer-term vision is to connect those dots via long distance pipelines, just like what's happening in the natural gas space today. So with the ACEs delta hydrogen hub, we have access to salt cavern, which is a great medium for hydrogen storage. So as we develop other projects in the region and around the country, our hope and our vision is to connect the other projects with the ACES Delta salt cavern so that we can provide a very low cost storage solution for hydrogen. Then repeat your second part of the question, if you don't mind.

JB: Just getting into decarbonizing those hard-to-abate areas.

KG: I think the ‘hard-to-abate sectors’ is an overused term. I think the entire economy is effectively pretty difficult to abate. If it's easy, we would've done it a long time ago. And I think it's important to mention that each individual sector has got its own decarbonization timeline. It'll be unfair to say, ‘Hey, power generation sector, let's decarbonize before 2040. Let's have the same timeline for marine or clean steel or some other difficult to abate sectors.’ We have to keep in mind that technology development takes time. It does not happen overnight. I think we're talking with a lot of industry players and stakeholders who are working very hard to make that a reality. So then you have demand. Once the technology is mature, you will have demand for clean hydrogen. Then we'll have to work on the supply side of the equation. We have to match supply and demand on the same timeline, and at the same time, make hydrogen an affordable molecule and fuel. So once we have … yeah, exactly. Once we have all the critical components on the same timeline, then we can really decarbonize the entire economy with a realistic timeline, whether that be 2040 or 2045 or 2050.

JB: Great. And can I get you to touch on maybe some of the end uses such as kind of hydrogen fuel cell trucking fleets and other potentials?

KG: Yeah, so right now we're very focused on the power generation sector because the scale, and there's large quantities of clean hydrogen needed to decarbonize power generation. Also in the mobility sector, like you mentioned, when I say mobility, I'm referring to pretty much anything that moves. It could be long haul trucking, it could be aviation, it could be even forklift, and all the heavy-duty equipment that we use to move merchandise within a warehouse. So all those equipment can be decarbonized through fuel cell and the hydrogen fuel. And in addition to mobility, we're looking at clean steel. I think that's a sector that requires a tremendous amount of energy, and hydrogen can play a critical role there. And there's a lot of other sectors that could use hydrogen. We believe hydrogen is a versatile molecule that could be used in a wide variety of ways.

JB: Great. Well thank you so much for joining us here at CERAWeek. Really appreciate it. To read and watch more, please visit online at hartenergy.com.

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