Topic C56-18F: Hydrogen Sustainability Assessment Methods for Project Development

Community infrastructure development is subject to the resource constraints of multiple departments and agencies, each with different schedules, agendas, mandates, budget cycles, and funding sources. Hydrogen production is a critical and growing part of the national infrastructure for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and avoiding the worse effects of global climate change. Tools such as Envision® developed by the Institute for Sustainable Infrastructure are widely adopted by infrastructure developers and communities to evaluate tradeoffs between different stakeholders; however, these tools have not been adapted for or tested with hydrogen infrastructure projects. The proposed project will result in a fully reviewed and proof-tested framework based on Envision® for evaluating how well hydrogen infrastructure projects contribute to the efficiency and long-term sustainability of the communities it serves. The program will involve (1) reviewing the sustainability metrics for their compatibility with hydrogen infrastructure projects, (2) developing recommendations for using existing tools such as GREET, H2FAST, and AWARE to quantitatively evaluate important sustainability issues with hydrogen-specific infrastructure projects such as lifecycle carbon emissions, economic impact evaluations, and water resource consumption, (3) develop a set of guidelines and best practices for all stakeholders to use Envision®, and (4) stress testing the sustainability tools using several case studies. The expected outcome from this work is a set of guidelines for evaluating the sustainability of hydrogen infrastructure projects that will eliminate barriers for all stakeholders to evaluating tradeoffs to sustainable hydrogen infrastructure.