Texas Hydrogen City to Support Global Export Demand

A collaboration between ABB and Green Hydrogen International (GHI) will develop a major green hydrogen facility in south Texas, which is set to produce 280,000 tons of green hydrogen per year.

The partners signed a Memorandum of Understanding earlier this week, under which ABB’s automation, electrification, and digital technology will be assessed for deployment at the Power-to-X facility.

The project will use solar and onshore wind energy to power a 2.2 GW electrolyser, with the resulting green hydrogen to be used to produce one million tons of green ammonia annually.

Underground salt cavern storage will be utilised to store up to 24,000 tons of green hydrogen, and help to balance out the intermittency of the renewable energy sources powering the operation, allowing for a lower levelized cost of hydrogen.

The green hydrogen will be transported via a 120 km pipeline to the Corpus Christi energy port, where it will be converted to ammonia and exported to Europe and Asia.

GHI is also in discussions with potential green hydrogen off takers for use as a feedstock in sustainable aviation fuel and e-methane production.

Brian Maxwell, CEO of GHI, commented: “GHI is honoured to be partnering with ABB on our Hydrogen City project.

“Their top-notch expertise in power systems architecture, automation, electrical and digital systems provides enormous advantages for this complex project and supports our goal of producing the lowest-cost green hydrogen in South Texas.”

ABB plans to supply its Integrated Control Safety System with the distributed control system ABB Ability™ System 800xA® to improve efficiency, operator performance and asset utilisation.

Brandon Spencer, President of ABB Energy Industries, said: “We are proud to collaborate with GHI on Hydrogen City, to explore how our automation, electrification and digital technology can support and scale this ambitious green hydrogen production facility.

“Together, we will enable efforts to decarbonize global industry and progress towards a net-zero future.”