The US government said Wednesday it will support 52 projects in the country to reinforce America’s global “leadership” in the growing clean hydrogen industry, Kallanish reports.

A total of $750 million will be made available to projects located across 24 states, under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the US Department of Energy (DOE) confirmed. The investment seeks to accelerate technology breakthroughs to enable a “dramatic” reduction in the cost of clean hydrogen. It will also improve manufacturing and recycling capabilities for both systems and components.

The projects are expected to enable the domestic production of 14 gigawatts of fuel cells per year, which the DOE says is enough to power 15% of medium- and heavy-duty trucks sold annually. They should also unlock 10 GW of electrolyser manufacturing capacity, enough to produce an additional 1.3 million tonnes/year of clean hydrogen.

The DOE selected the projects under six areas. It awarded funding to eight electrolyser manufacturing projects of companies including Cummins, Plug Power, Nel Hydrogen and thyssenkrupp nucera.

ACS Industries, Mott Corporation, PPG Industries, Ionomr Innovations are some of the 10 companies awarded funding under the electrolyser supply chain category. When it comes to electrolyser components, 18 developers were selected including 3M Company, Ecolectro, Avium and several universities.

Five projects are related to fuel cell manufacturing, with developers including Ballard Power System, GM, Nuvera Fuel Cells and Robert Bosch. Investment in projects proposing the development of fuel cell supply chains will go to 10 companies, some of which are receiving funds from other areas. Additionally, DOE also awarded $50m to one recovery and recycling project proposed by a consortium of industry, academia and national labs.

Geographically, most of the selected projects are on the east coast of the country.

The announcement represents the first phase of implementation of two provisions of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which authorises $1 billion to reduce green hydrogen production costs, and $500m targeting improved processes and tech for manufacturing and recycling of clean hydrogen systems and materials. The Biden administration wants to reduce the cost of clean hydrogen production by 80% to $1/kilogram in one decade.