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Georgia Power Joins Effort to Establish Six-state Southeast Hydrogen Hub

Staff Report

Thursday, November 3rd, 2022

Georgia Power is furthering its commitment to build the energy grid of the future and reduce carbon emissions across its generation fleet through a newly formed coalition of major utility companies across the Southeast, working to secure federal financial support for a Southeast Hydrogen Hub. The coalition, including Georgia Power's parent Southern Company, will respond to the recently announced funding opportunity from the U.S. Department of Energy, which includes $8 billion for regional hydrogen hubs and is part of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.

A hydrogen hub in the Southeastern U.S. is expected to bring robust economic development benefits to the region, and hydrogen is attractive as an energy resource because it has immediate potential to accelerate decarbonization in the Southeast and across all sectors of the U.S. economy – including transportation, which generates the largest share of greenhouse gas emissions in the country. Read more about today's announcement here.

"The Southeast continues to be one of the most innovative and forward-looking parts of the country when it comes to advancing new energy technologies that help decarbonize the grid, while also growing the economy and bringing jobs, and today's announcement reinforces our region's leadership in this area," said Chris Womack, chairman, president and CEO of Georgia Power. "As we continue to make smart investments that help us better deliver clean, safe, reliable and affordable energy for our customers, we see incredible potential in the future use of hydrogen as part of our diverse energy mix."

Also earlier this summer, Mitsubishi Power and Georgia Power, alongside the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), successfully tested fuel blending of hydrogen and natural gas at both partial and full load on an M501G natural gas turbine at Georgia Power's Plant McDonough-Atkinson in Smyrna, Georgia. The demonstration project was the first to validate 20% hydrogen fuel blending on an advanced class gas turbine in North America, and the largest test of this kind to date, with the 20% blend providing an approximately 7% reduction in carbon emissions compared to natural gas.

The landmark testing at Plant McDonough-Atkinson was part of a continued commitment to new research and development to build the energy grid of the future and to reduce carbon emissions across its generation fleet, with Georgia Power having already reduced its carbon emissions by more than 60% since 2007.