The City of Lancaster has announced that its winning project in the U.S. Department of Energy’s H2 Twin Cities 2022 program will launch the Pacific Hydrogen Alliance (PHA). This alliance will see Lancaster and the City of Namie in Japan serve as mentors to Hawai’i County, Hawaii on the development and deployment of hydrogen energy solutions at the municipal level.
Many opportunities
The municipalities represent diverse geographies, demographics, economic drivers, and levels of hydrogen deployment, with Lancaster in the high desert and tropical Hawaii County in the central Pacific, each with a population of about 200,000, very different from the seaside town of Namie in northern Japan, which has a population of about 20,000.
The unique capabilities and requirements of each jurisdiction will provide important opportunities to share resources and shape hydrogen development choices for each location. According to the project’s initiators, each partner brings unique qualities that make the alliance a formidable agent of change in the three key areas of focus: personal impacts on citizens, hydrogen infrastructure and environmental benefits. “The mutual mission to serve their communities with workforce development, diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, as well as awareness of environmental justice, will play a key role in how they address these areas of focus.”
