The Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) held a public meeting to discuss the findings of the Draft 2024 Connecticut Clean H₂ Roadmap. Pursuant to Public Act No. 23-156, and consistent with Connecticut’s greenhouse gas reduction goals as well as DEEP’s Integrated Resource Planning and Comprehensive Energy Strategy that examine the state’s future energy needs and ways to meet those needs, the Draft Roadmap seeks to achieve the following objectives:

• Articulate Connecticut’s aspirations for clean H₂'s integration into its energy landscape, outlining its potential contributions to decarbonization, economic growth and environmental justice
• Encourage the use of H₂ produced from renewable energy
• Guide strategic development of clean H₂ production, infrastructure, and end use by identifying the target technologies and their associated volumes over time to scale Connecticut’s H₂ economy
• Identification of benefits and risks associated with H₂ and tactics to address the identified risks
• Recommend policies, programs, and pilot projects to support clean H₂ development and deployment in alignment with state goals.

“Clean H₂ has the potential to support Connecticut in achieving its climate goals along with other important state priorities including affordability, economic growth, environmental justice and energy resiliency and reliability,” said DEEP Commissioner Katie Dykes. “The Draft Clean H₂ Roadmap provides an in-depth quantitative and qualitative foundation for policymakers to make informed decisions on policies and programs to effectively incentivize the development and deployment of Clean H₂ in Connecticut in ways that bring the most benefit to Connecticut residents.”

The primary purpose of the draft roadmap is to identify the main drivers of and barriers to clean H₂ production and adoption as an energy carrier in Connecticut, as well as to understand how clean H₂ compares with incumbent technologies and other low-carbon alternatives. The draft roadmap also proposes a clean H₂ definition for state-support purposes. Based on the above analysis, the roadmap distills a set of recommendations of policies, programs and pilots to support clean H₂ development and deployment in the state.

Leaders from the Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development, the University of Connecticut, the Connecticut Green Bank, H₂ companies, environmental justice and workforce development advocacy organizations, as well as legislative leaders and Congressional Delegation members and representatives, including Congressman John Larson (CT-01), who co-chairs the House H₂ and Fuel Cell Caucus, attended the meeting. The event was also an opportunity for Connecticut H₂ stakeholders to re-convene and discuss broader H₂-related relevant topics.