hydropower

Houston energy storage company secures another $2M in federal funding

Houston-based Quidnet Energy has again secured funding from the DOE. Image via quidnetenergy.com

Earlier this month, the U.S. Department of Energy announced another $13 million in funding to seven projects that are developing hydropower as a clean energy source. A Houston startup made the list of recipients.

“For more than a century, Americans have harnessed the power of water to electrify our communities, and it’s a critical renewable energy source that will help us reach our climate goals,” U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm says in a news release. “President Biden’s Investing in America agenda will help to expand the use of hydropower, increasing access to affordable, clean power and creating good-paying jobs.”

Houston-based Quidnet Energy Inc. received a little over $2 million for its project, entitled "Energy Storage Systems for Overpressure Environments," which is taking place in East Texas. The company, founded in 2013, is using water storage to power carbon-free electric grid approach to energy. As the DOE notes, the "low-cost form of long-duration electricity storage uses existing wellbores, which offers an opportunity to repurpose legacy oil and gas assets," per the release.

It's not the first Quidnet has secured funding from the DOE. Last fall, the company earned a $10 million grant from the organization's Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, or ARPA-E, program. Quidnet is also venture backed, with its most recent raise, a $10 million series B round, closing in 2020 and including participation from Bill Gates-backed Breakthrough Energy Ventures and Canada-based Evok Innovations.

The DOE's other PSH, or pumped storage hydropower, grants were announced as follows.

  • The Electric Power Research Institute, based in Palo Alto, California, secured $2.3 million to test "a turbine/generator system designed to add power-generating infrastructure to non-powered dams" in Iowa, per the release.
  • Atlanta-based Emrgy received $1.6 million to "develop a turbine to generate hydropower at non-powered dams where the water drop is less than 30 feet or in low-flow conduits, such as existing irrigation canals," in Washington.
  • Another Atlanta company, Georgia Power Co. is getting just under $2.9 million to develop and deploy PSH facilities across the country with its utility-scale solution to retrofit traditional hydropower facilities to serve as PSH facilities. The site the company will demonstrate it's tech is in Salem, Alabama.
  • RCAM Technologies, based in Boulder, Colorado, will work on offshore PSH technology in San Pedro, California, with its $4 million grant.
  • Drops for Watts received $243,540 to "develop a low-impact, modular system to generate hydropower from existing irrigation infrastructure" in Sagle, Idaho.
  • In Atlanta, Turbine Logic will use its nearly $200,000 in funding to utilize digital twin technology "to better predict common maintenance needs in hydropower turbines."

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A View From HETI

ExxonMobil Chairman and CEO Darren Woods said during the company’s recent second-quarter earnings call that the company is "concerned about the development of a broader market" for its low-carbon hydrogen plant in Baytown. Photo via exxonmobil.com

Spring-based ExxonMobil, the country’s largest oil and gas company, might delay or cancel what would be the world’s largest low-carbon hydrogen plant due to a significant change in federal law. The project carries a $7 billion price tag.

The Biden-era Inflation Reduction Act created a new 10-year incentive, the 45V tax credit, for production of clean hydrogen. But under President Trump’s "One Big Beautiful Bill Act," the window for starting construction of low-carbon hydrogen projects that qualify for the tax credit has narrowed. The Inflation Reduction Act mandated that construction start by 2033. But the Big Beautiful Bill switched the construction start time to early 2028.

“While our project can meet this timeline, we’re concerned about the development of a broader market, which is critical to transition from government incentives,” ExxonMobil Chairman and CEO Darren Woods said during the company’s recent second-quarter earnings call.

Woods said ExxonMobil is working to determine whether a combination of the 45Q tax credit for carbon capture projects and the revised 45V tax credit will help pave the way for a “broader” low-carbon hydrogen market.

“If we can’t see an eventual path to a market-driven business, we won’t move forward with the [Baytown] project,” Woods said.

“We knew that helping to establish a brand-new product and a brand-new market initially driven by government policy would not be easy or advance in a straight line,” he added.

Woods said ExxonMobil is trying to nail down sales contracts connected to the project, including exports of ammonia to Asia and Europe and sales of hydrogen in the U.S.

ExxonMobil announced in 2022 that it would build the low-carbon hydrogen plant at its refining and petrochemical complex in Baytown. The company has said the plant is slated to go online in 2027 and 2028.

As it stands now, ExxonMobil wants the Baytown plant to produce up to 1 billion cubic feet of hydrogen per day made from natural gas, and capture and store more than 98 percent of the associated carbon dioxide. The company has said the project could store as much as 10 million metric tons of CO2 per year.

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