Air Liquide to open RNG hydrogen plant: Correction

Corrects date for plant opening in headline and first paragraph.

Air Liquide will open a steam methane reformation plant fed by renewable natural gas (RNG) in Las Vegas, Nevada, by the end of March.

The hydrogen plant, powered by methane captured from biological wastes, will produce 30 tonnes (t) per day of hydrogen at full capacity. This will be enough to fuel 42,000 hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles, said Katie Ellet, president of Hydrogen Energy and Mobility for Air Liquide north America.

The $250mn plant will bethe first world-scale liquid hydrogen production unit dedicated to serving the US West Coast. The facility is targeted at California's current market of 10,000 fuel cell vehicles, but it will also have the capacity to power other industrial markets, Ellet said.

"Fuel cell vehicles are very attractive to consumers, but in order to increase widespread adoption, there needs to be sufficient investment made to bring economies of scale to the hydrogen economy to lower costs," said Ellet. "The government has a key role to play in supporting this transition — by incentivizing large-scale investment in hydrogen hubs and considering the benefits of fuel cell vehicles when making fleet purchases, they can help the market achieve economies of scale much more rapidly."

Air Liquide owns a "green" 20MW polymer electrolyte membrane electrolysis facility in Quebec, Canada, which opened early last year.

By Emmeline Willey