The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act provides funding for seven clean hydrogen hubs across the country. In this analysis, we quantify the economic and job benefits associated with four of these hubs.
Clean hydrogen is a versatile tool for decarbonizing particularly hard-to-abate sectors, including industry and heavy-duty transport. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) provided the Department of Energy (DOE) with funding for the Regional Clean Hydrogen Hubs program, with a total of $7 billion for seven clean hydrogen hubs across the country. These hubs will provide valuable experience integrating hydrogen into multiple sectors of the economy. Each hub will encompass a combination of energy sources, hydrogen production approaches, transport infrastructure, and end-use applications based on local resources and demand.
In this analysis, we quantify the economic benefits associated with four of the hydrogen hubs—Appalachian, California, Gulf Coast, and Midwest—through the point of hydrogen distribution. This group of hubs represents a diverse set of geographic locations across the US and captures a variety of hydrogen production pathways. In total, our analysis finds these four hubs are associated with a total of 32,900 to 47,700 average annual jobs over a three-year construction period and 2,800 to 4,600 ongoing jobs to operate and maintain the hubs.
This nonpartisan, independent research was conducted with support from the Great Plains Institute (GPI). The results presented in this report reflect the views of the authors and not necessarily those of the supporting organization.
Note
The Department of Energy has announced two direct air capture hubs: the South Texas DAC Hub in Texas and Project Cypress in Louisiana. In this analysis, we quantify the economic and job benefits associated with these two announced DAC hub projects.