Southern Company has joined the Hydrogen Council, a global CEO-led coalition of companies with a shared vision and long-term ambition for hydrogen to foster the clean energy transition, reflecting its goal of achieving net-zero operations while providing customers and communities with affordable, reliable, and resilient energy.
The Council believes that hydrogen will play a critical role in achieving global decarbonization goals by assisting in the diversification of energy sources, the promotion of business and technological innovation as drivers of long-term economic growth, and the decarbonization of difficult-to-abate sectors. Its 134 members include utilities, chemical makers, energy firms, engineers, automobile companies, and investors from all over the world.
“Southern Company is embracing hydrogen as a potentially powerful solution to holistically serve customers’ needs while providing a resilient energy system and driving growth in a decarbonized energy economy,” said Chris Cummiskey, executive vice president, and chief commercial and customer solutions officer at Southern Company. “We’re excited to work with the Hydrogen Council to examine how hydrogen might serve consumers while also deeply decarbonizing Southern Company’s system operations.”
Southern Company’s industry-leading research and development (R&D) division is actively involved in a portfolio of low-carbon hydrogen production, power generation, distribution, transportation, infrastructure, and energy storage projects both locally and abroad. The corporation is leading a number of research demonstrations with the US Department of Energy and its national laboratories that cover the whole value chain of a hydrogen economy, including the creation of a national road map for hydrogen deployment.
“Decarbonization continues to be the main priority of Southern Company’s R&D strategy,” stated Dr. Mark S. Berry, vice president of R&D. “We believe that hydrogen technology has a strong chance of delivering a sustainable energy future. Our membership in the Hydrogen Council provides us with a new way to advance innovative energy solutions that are clean, safe, dependable, and inexpensive.”
In addition to the Hydrogen Council, Southern Company is a founding sponsor of the Low-Carbon Resources Initiative, a global R&D collaboration between the Electric Power Research Institute and the Gas Technology Institute focused on hydrogen and other low-carbon energy carriers. The company also participates in hydrogen-related technical organizations such as the AIChE Center for Hydrogen Safety, National Fuel Cell Research Center, and IEA Hydrogen Technology Collaboration Programme, as well as advocacy organizations in the United States such as the Fuel Cell and Hydrogen Energy Association and Clean Hydrogen Future Coalition.
In addition, Southern Company subsidiary Southern Company Gas leads the HyBlend program, which aims to overcome technical challenges to blending hydrogen into existing natural gas infrastructure, as well as cooperation aimed at improving technologies for generating hydrogen from food waste. The latter project’s purpose is to assist in the decarbonization of the transportation and distributed energy sectors, as well as the commercialization of this clean, renewable fuel.
