Mitsubishi Power selects Emerson to automate green hydrogen facility

Advanced Clean Energy Storage project

Mitsubishi Power Americas has selected Emerson to automate the world’s largest green hydrogen production and storage facility in Delta, Utah.

Mitsubishi Power will use Emerson’s hydrogen production experience and automation software expertise to increase safety, decrease costs and simplify maintenance.

Advanced Clean Energy Storage hub will use renewable electricity to power electrolyzers to produce green hydrogen. The produced hydrogen will be stored underground in salt caverns so that it can be dispatched when required to generate clean electricity from hydrogen-fueled turbines.

In June 2022, the Department of Energy issued a $504.4 million loan guarantee to finance Advanced Clean Energy Storage. The facility will combine 220 megawatts of alkaline electrolysis with two 4.5 million barrel salt caverns to store clean hydrogen.

“Emerson’s hydrogen expertise and digitally connected architecture design will help shorten time to start up, while also developing a safe, reliable and easily scalable transmission system to meet our goals for renewable energy production and storage,” said Michael Ducker, senior vice president of Hydrogen Infrastructure for Mitsubishi Power Americas and president of Advanced Clean Energy Storage I.

The Advanced Clean Energy Storage hub will convert renewable energy through 220 MW electrolyzer bank to produce up to 100 tons of green hydrogen per day. The facility will have storage for 300 gigawatt hours (GWh) of energy in two salt caverns. In comparison, the battery storage capacity across the United States is 2-GWh via lithium-ion batteries. The Advanced Clean Energy Storage hub has space for up to 100 caverns.

This facility will provide hydrogen storage for use at the nearby 840-MW Intermountain Power Project (IPP Renewed). IPP Renewed will use 30 percent (vol) hydrogen fuel in Mitsubishi Power M501JAC gas turbines at start up, transitioning to 100 percent (vol) hydrogen by 2045.

“Mitsubishi Power has successfully leveraged the digital automation stack to develop an innovative, sustainable way to solve that problem, enabling providers to consistently use peak-production renewable energy in peak-consumption hours,” Bob Yeager, president of Emerson’s power and water business, said.

Mitsubishi Power will use Emerson’s Ovation control and safety platform to optimize the Advanced Clean Energy Storage hub’s production efficiency and help ensure safe operations. The Ovation platform will provide control and monitoring of the renewable hydrogen production process and emergency shutdown, fire and gas protection.

Emerson’s PACSystems RSTi-EP I/O will provide easier field connectivity and help facilitate project changes without extending timelines or increasing cost, while AMS Device Manager will help monitor the health of plant assets to improve safety and efficiency.