Rochester and New York state could soon become the location of the country’s first-ever federal clean, green hydrogen hub.

“I’m here to talk about the huge opportunity that New York has and Rochester has to become of the center of America’s first-ever billion-dollar clean hydrogen hub," said Sen. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer during a visit to Plug Rochester Gigafactor. He spent time there to launch a push urging the Department of Energy to choose the New York state-led Northeast Regional Clean Hydrogen Hub for its $1.25 billion grant.

What You Need To Know

  • Rochester may become the center of America’s first-ever billion-dollar clean hydrogen hub

  • Sen. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer seeking a $1.25 billion grant

  • The announcement was made at Rochester's Plus Gigafactory where the process is already being done

“Today I’m sending a letter to Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm to make it clear that New York and the Northeast have all the right ingredients to be the nation’s first-ever regional clean hydrogen hub," said Schumer.

Plug’s Gigafactory products create energy. Andy Marsh is its CEO.

“What this does, what this thing does is convert water into hydrogen to make hydrogen fuel and this factory makes fuel cell stacks that use the clean hydrogen fuel to make electricity to power everything from forklifts to busses to heating and cooling systems," said Marsh, who described some of the equipment produced at Plug.

"This is what’s called an electrolyzer stack, and this specific stack takes one megawatt of electricity,” Marsh said. “That’s a lot of electricity right, I mean this whole building is only ten megawatts. And that takes one megawatt and creates 487 kilograms of hydrogen. It’s equivalent to about a thousand gallons of gasoline but it’s all clean.” 

He says it's then transferred to another Plug product.

“And that hydrogen actually goes into this device,” Marsh said. “This device actually creates electricity, and that electricity could be used actually to provide backup power if there is an outage. It could be used to create power when the grid is overloaded. It also could be used to run the big trucks on the road.”

Senator Schumer says feels confident the $1.25 billion grant will come through for this effort.

“Always looking for new industries that are going to grow and green hydrogen has been one of the greatest potentials for growth,” Schumer said. “And my goal and dream is to make Rochester and New York the center of green hydrogen.”