DOE RFI on H2@Scale for Hydrogen Adoption: Identifying Opportunities and Resources

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s vision of the H2@Scale initiative is to enable affordable, reliable and secure energy through hydrogen production from diverse domestic resources and utilization across multiple sectors. Through this initiative, the DOE aims to incentivize the research and development (R&D) of transformational technologies that reduce the cost of hydrogen production and distribution technologies, diversify the feedstocks available for affordable hydrogen production, enable new end uses of hydrogen, enhance the flexibility of the electric power grid, reduce emissions through novel uses of affordable hydrogen, generate jobs in growing industries, and provide global technology leadership for export of next-generation energy solutions. The objective of this Request for Information (RFI) is to identify and quantify domestic resources compatible with large-scale hydrogen production, and to identify pathways to enable effective near- and long-term leveraging of these resources in major industries requiring affordable, secure, domestic, and scalable hydrogen supplies. This RFI complements the DOE Fuel Cell Technologies Office’s (FCTO’s) early-stage R&D activities and is intended to leverage the private sector to identify technical, cost and infrastructure barriers to deployment and widespread adoption of hydrogen and fuel cell technologies. This RFI also complements FCTO’s RFI titled Identifying Priorities for Reducing Barriers to Deployment of Hydrogen Infrastructure which was released on June 13, 2018.

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This RFI is not a Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA); therefore, the DOE is not accepting applications at this time. The DOE may issue a FOA in the future based on or related to the content and responses to this RFI; however, the DOE may also elect not to issue a FOA. There is no guarantee that a FOA will be issued as a result of this RFI. Responding to this RFI does not provide any advantage or disadvantage to potential applicants if the DOE chooses to issue a FOA regarding the subject matter.

Any information obtained as a result of this RFI is intended to be used by the Government on a non-attribution basis for planning and strategy development; this RFI does not constitute a formal solicitation for proposals or abstracts. Your response to this notice will be treated as information only. The DOE will review and consider all responses in its formulation of program strategies for the identified materials of interest that are the subject of this request. The DOE will not provide reimbursement for costs incurred in responding to this RFI. Respondents are advised that the DOE is under no obligation to acknowledge receipt of the information received or provide feedback to respondents with respect to any information submitted under this RFI. Responses to this RFI do not bind the DOE to any further actions related to this topic.

Because information received in response to this RFI may be used to structure future programs and FOAs and/or otherwise be made available to the public, respondents are strongly advised to NOT include any information in their responses that might be considered business sensitive, proprietary, or otherwise confidential. If, however, a respondent chooses to submit business sensitive, proprietary, or otherwise confidential information, it must be clearly and conspicuously marked as such in the response.

Responses to this RFI must be submitted online or by email in accordance with the “RFI Submission Guidelines” detailed in the RFI. The submission must be received no later than 5:00 pm (ET) on October 31, 2018.

The DOE will not respond to individual submissions or publish publicly a compendium of responses. A response to this RFI will not be viewed as a binding commitment to develop or pursue the project or ideas discussed.

This is a Request for Information (RFI) only. EERE will not pay for information provided under this RFI and no project will be supported as a result of this RFI. This RFI is not accepting applications for financial assistance or financial incentives. EERE may or may not issue a Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) based on consideration of the input received from this RFI.

The full RFI is posted on the EERE Exchange website at https://eere-exchange.energy.gov.