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Accelera by Cummins cut the ribbon on its new HyLYZER proton exchange membrane electrolyzer at the Cummins Power Generation facility in Fridley on May 18.
The ribbon on the electrolyzer was cut by U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm, Gov. Tim Walz, Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, Accelera by Cummins President Amy Davis, State Rep. Erin Koegel, DFL-Spring Lake Park, State Sen. Mary K. Kunesh, DFL-New Brighton, Fridley Mayor Scott Lund, and several others.
HyLYZER PEM electrolyzer in Fridley is Accelera by Cummins’ first electrolyzer production facility in the U.S. The facility utilizes approximately 89,000 square feet of the Fridley Cummins location and will be able to produce 500 megawatts of green hydrogen annually, with plans to scale up to 1 gigawatt of capacity in the future, said Accelera by Cummins President Amy Davis.
HyLYZER PEM electrolyzer splits water into hydrogen and oxygen. The hydrogen can then be stored as a liquid or gas and used as an alternative to fossil fuels.
The HyLYZER PEM electrolyzer project was announced just last October. Now, seven months later, the machine is now currently building more electrolyzers that will create clean energy.
“We’ve been working for a long time on our strategy of ‘Destination Zero’ and that’s really about the transition of our company to diesel engines, all the way through clean energy,” Cummins President of Power Systems Business Unit Jenny Bush said, on April 4 when President Joe Biden stopped at Cummins as part of his “Investing in America” tour. “The electrolyzer is a key piece of technology because that allows you to take water and create clean hydrogen.”
Cummins has retrained 600
employees currently working on diesel engines to run the HyLYZER PEM electrolyzer production lines. An additional 100 employees are also being hired.
“Accelera’s mission is simple,” Davis said during the ribbon-cutting event. “Accelerate the shift to net-zero by pursuing the most promising past work and clean hydrogen is key to accelerating the shift and decarbonizing some of the hardest to evade sectors including industries like steel refinery, ammonia and heavy duty transportation like long-haul trucking. The electrolyzers produced here are instrumental in a clean hydrogen economy, which is key to decarbonization.”
U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm praised the Accelera by Cummins team for making the switch as a company to transition over to clean energy.
“I know that the (Accelera by Cummins) team...appreciates the significance of the story you’re writing,” said Granholm. “In fact it’s a series of stories that are being written here. One story is one of transformation. Transforming a plant that was making diesel and will still be making diesel generators, but adding to the capability by creating this new energy economy right here (in Fridley). It’s the story of new beginnings for workers who have been doing the diesel generation side to (now) come over to the hydrogen electrolyzer side, which is very exciting because we want to be able to demonstrate that in this clean energy economy there are skills matched transformations that can happen for those that are doing traditional energy work and to move into clean energy work. And of course it’s the story of a homecoming because for the first time a company, that was born in the Midwest, can also stamp its most cutting-edge technology ‘made in America.’ These stories are all part of the chapter being written by the Biden administration, which is to highlight this exact transformation for America.”
Accelera by Cummins in a release stated that as a result of the passing of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act, the company has received orders for nearly 300 megawatts of electrolyzer projects in North America, which could generate a total of 150 tons of hydrogen per day by the end of 2026.
SOURCE: Hometown Source
