A bill to expand the provision of green hydrogen by municipal and rural utilities appears headed for easy sailing through the Washington House.
On Friday, Democrats and Republicans on the House Environment and Energy Committee unanimously recommended that the full House pass House Bill 1792, which provides tax credits for “green electrolytic hydrogen” produced, sold or distributed by municipalities and public utility districts.
Green electrolytic hydrogen is hydrogen produced through electrolysis and does not include hydrogen manufactured by steam reforming or by any technologies using fossil fuels.
Rep. Alex Ramel (D) introduced the bill. “I’m really excited about the future in Washington of green hydrogen,” he said at the committee vote.
This is the latest baby step as Washington tries to set up a renewable hydrogen industry to power fuel cell electric vehicles.
In 2019, the legislature passed a law to allow Washington public utility districts to manufacture and distribute hydrogen. This spring, the Douglas County PUD in central Washington hopes to open the state’s first hydrogen production plant, which will use electrolysis to separate hydrogen and oxygen from water pumped from the PUD’s Wells Dam on the Columbia River.
Douglas PUD and the Twin Transit Authority in the Lewis County city of Chehalis are building hydrogen fuel stations for their agency’s vehicles. These would be the first such fueling stations in Washington.
The bill has a still-undefined 25-year tax exemption that would be created for the electricity that a utility sells to a green electrolytic hydrogen production business, a renewable hydrogen production business, or a business compressing, liquifying, or dispensing green hydrogen or renewable hydrogen. Existing exemptions from the retail sales tax, use tax, and leasehold excise tax that apply to certain aspects of the production of renewable hydrogen would be also expanded to include the production of green hydrogen.
“We are very grateful to Rep. Ramel for the tax incentives,” said Rep. Mary Dye, the committee’s ranking Republican member.