Senate and House to meet Thursday to repurpose $12 million in bonds for UConn-Pratt & Whitney hydrogen energy research proposal.
The legislature will meet Thursday to assist the University of Connecticut in its partnership with Pratt & Whitney to win hundreds of millions dollars in a federal energy research grant. The university and the jet engine manufacturer have developed a proposal that they believe could turn UConn into a significant hydrogen energy research center.
UConn President Radenka Maric, according to her online biography, “is a world leader in technologies for clean energy and sustainability. She has significantly advanced understanding of materials and catalysts and has developed innovative manufacturing processes involved in fuel cell technologies, storage materials, and electrochemical sensors for health applications, leading to higher-performance, commercially viable clean energy systems.” That deep background in energy innovation includes hydrogen research.” Maric has been issued six patents over the course of her career. She knows hydrogen.
The application has been greeted with enthusiasm as UConn representatives, old hands at knowing how to do business at the LOB, have explained the public-private partnership to legislative leaders. Research into using hydrogen for energy generation will entail decarbonizing it into “green hydrogen.” That process is explained here. Hydrogen does have persistent critics in the competitive business of energy research and development.
The Department of Energy will provide $8 billion for hydrogen research under the Bipartisan Infrastructure and Jobs Act. The UConn/Pratt & Whitney application is separate from the regional consortium of New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Maine, Vermont and Connecticut that is seeking to create a “hydrogen hub” in the Northeast. New York is the lead state in that hydrogen alliance, according to UConn spokesperson Stephanie Reitz.
Not everyone in state government shares UConn’s excitement for the proposal. Resistance to this innovative hydrogen energy research application may cause Department of Energy and Environmental Protection Commissioner Katherine Dykes’ nomination to remain on the House calendar without action.
Connecticut has served for decades as the home of public and private hydrogen research and development of hydrogen fuels cells as the industry has struggled to find a significant advance that will be make the technology affordable and widely available.
Published February 6, 2023.