The US Department of Energy's Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies Office (HFTO), in partnership with domestic and global partners, plans to develop an innovative competition entitled Equitable and Clean Opportunities for Hydrogen Deployment – the Eco-H2 Prize.

The Eco-H2 Prize will invite competitors to apply sustainability assessment tools and frameworks to complete case studies of existing or planned hydrogen deployments. The resulting assessments will contribute to practitioner experience applying analytic methods and developing guidelines to properly assess the unique characteristics of real-world, commercial hydrogen energy projects.

The prize will comprise two phases:

Phase 1: Competing teams will develop approaches to evaluate the sustainability of commercial hydrogen projects, including an assessment of community benefits, environmental impacts, equity, justice, cost, and more. These teams will rely on both existing and new analytic capabilities, stakeholder input, and real-world data.

Phase 2: Teams will apply assessment approaches to evaluate hydrogen deployments. Teams will engage with project partners and community stakeholders to acquire real-world data, determine feasible best practices, and develop reports that outline best practices for evaluations of similar systems.

Winning teams may receive cash prizes and could present at various venues to showcase their results. More information about the Eco-H2 Prize will be released at the Hydrogen Americas Summit in June.