Air Products, based in the Lehigh Valley, announced on Thursday it had entered into an agreement to build the largest green hydrogen facility in the United States with AES Corporation.
The facility, located in Wilbarger County, Texas, will produce over 200 metric tons of green hydrogen per day when it is completed, the two companies said. Additionally, the facility will be powered by an estimated 1.4GW of wind and solar power. Officials said the new facility will be the largest green hydrogen facility in the United States to use wind and solar power as energy sources.
“We are very pleased to announce this exciting joint venture with AES, which is one of the leading renewable energy companies in America,” said Seifi Ghasemi, chairman, president, and CEO of Air Products. “The new facility in Texas will be, by far, the largest mega-scale clean hydrogen production facility in the U.S. to use wind and sun as energy sources. We have been working on the development of this project with AES for many years, and it will be competitive on a world scale while bringing significant tax, job, and energy security benefits to Texas. We are excited to move forward and make clean green hydrogen available to U.S. customers in the near future.”
The green hydrogen produced at the facility will serve the mobility market and other industrial markets, officials said. Both companies anticipate the demand for green hydrogen to grow in the mobility and industrial sectors over the next decade as net-zero carbon emission ambitions grow amongst states and large corporations.
Anticipated to create more than 1,300 construction jobs and 115 permanent operations jobs, the facility will generate an estimated $500 million in tax benefits for Texas once it is operational in 2027, officials said. However, the project is still subject to receiving local permits and local, state, and federal incentives.