SoCalGas has begun construction on its H2 Hydrogen Home in Downey, a cutting-edge demonstration project meant to demonstrate the resiliency and dependability of a hydrogen microgrid.
The firm received the H2 Hydrogen Home, a modular, prefabricated home that is the first of its type in the United States and will demonstrate how carbon-free gas produced from renewable electricity may be utilized to power future clean energy systems. The house will function as a tiny microgrid, storing and delivering reliable, low-carbon electricity when needed, and demonstrating how such a system may be built on a larger scale to power residential areas and businesses.
“SoCalGas has invested in hydrogen research and development over the past decade, seeing it as a crucial component of our transition to net-zero emissions,” said Maryam Brown, president of SoCalGas. “The H2 Hydrogen house brings together many of the technologies that we helped pioneer under one roof in a one-of-a-kind exhibition of how California may power resilient communities and companies in the future,” says the author.
California Assemblymember Cristina Garcia remarked, “The H2 Hydrogen Home is a real illustration of the cutting-edge technology and renewable energy systems that we will need to accomplish our net-zero carbon target by 2045.” “To build a more robust grid as we transition to a future of renewable power in California, we will rely on a number of energy sources, including hydrogen and advanced fuel cells. I am honored that the 58th district would be the first in the country to display this model.”
“We at the City of Downey have been honored to be at the forefront of new and growing technology since our days as the home of the Apollo Space Systems,” said Downey Councilmember and former Mayor Claudia M. Frometa. “We are now ecstatic to be a part of this historic time in the advancement of green hydrogen development.”
The H2 Hydrogen Home is a roughly 2,000-square-foot home with solar panels, a battery, an electrolyzer that converts solar energy to hydrogen, and a fuel cell that provides power. Hydrogen will also be combined with natural gas up to 20% and utilized in the home’s tankless water heater, clothes dryer, gas stove, fireplace, and barbecue grill. The home will operate and feel exactly like a regular home, but it will use reliable and clean energy 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, by drawing energy from solar panels on sunny days and converting excess energy into clean hydrogen, which can be stored and converted back into electricity with an on-site hydrogen fuel cell when solar or batteries are insufficient. In addition, the house is being built to LEED Platinum standards.
Clean Class 8 trucks fueled by hydrogen and electric power supply systems that only emit water delivered the home’s materials this week. Two Hyundai XCIENT Fuel Cell trucks, which are part of a California Air Resources Board (CARB) and California Energy Commission (CEC) project called “NorCal ZERO,” which aims to deploy or supply 30 trucks in Northern California by early 2023, and two Kenworth T680s equipped with the Toyota fuel cell electric system, which are being demonstrated as part of the CARB Port of Los Angeles “Shore to Store” (S2S) project, were among the featured participants.
