Hydrogen’s Real-World Wins — Ohio, Denmark & Solar-Powered Drones Leading the Way

In this episode of The Hydrogen Podcast, Paul Rodden highlights three powerful stories proving that hydrogen’s progress is driven by innovation, economics, and real-world execution. From the U.S. Midwest to Northern Europe to high-tech drone applications, the hydrogen industry is showing tangible momentum.

🇺🇸 Ohio’s Hydrogen Grit
Even as federal hydrogen funding faces political turbulence, Ohio’s hydrogen economy keeps expanding.
At the Ohio Fuel Cell and Hydrogen Coalition, Bill Whittenberger made it clear: “We’re building businesses in this state regardless.”
Key players include:

• American Electric Power (AEP) partnering with Bloom Energy for 1 GW of fuel cells to power data centers.
• Honda continuing its Marysville fuel cell vehicle production and exploring hydrogen’s role in shipping and aviation.
• Independence Hydrogen leveraging industrial byproducts from INEOS for hydrogen purification and compression.
  Ohio’s story shows hydrogen’s business case is alive—rooted in industrial resilience, local demand, and speed to market.

🇩🇰 Denmark’s HySynergy Plant – A European Milestone
Europe’s hydrogen ambitions are moving from theory to practice. The HySynergy project in Fredericia—powered entirely by solar and wind—now produces eight tonnes of hydrogen daily.
This 20 MW facility, operated by Everfuel, links hydrogen directly to refinery operations and cross-border exports to Germany.
Though delayed and still challenged by high electricity costs, HySynergy proves scalability is within reach. CEO Jakob Korsgaard urges strong implementation of the EU RED III directive to hit Europe’s 2030 renewables targets.
The result: a genuine step toward low-carbon hydrogen at commercial scale.

🚀 Solar Hydrogen Nanogrids – Powering Drones and Beyond
Michigan-based Sesame Solar has unveiled a game-changing solar-hydrogen nanogrid, capable of generating hydrogen on-site—anywhere, anytime.
How it works:

• Draws water from the air.
• Uses solar power for electrolysis.
• Stores hydrogen safely in metal hydrides, enabling months-long storage.
  This portable nanogrid powers long-endurance drones like Heven AeroTech’s Z1, supporting missions for defense, disaster response, and remote industries.
  No fuel deliveries. No diesel logistics. Just clean, deployable hydrogen in minutes.

💡 The Bigger Picture:
Hydrogen’s success depends on smart economics and flexible deployment.

• Ohio demonstrates bottom-up market resilience.
• Denmark proves policy-driven scale-up is achievable.
• Sesame Solar shows innovation can bypass infrastructure bottlenecks.

From heavy industry to autonomous tech, hydrogen’s value is being earned through performance, not promises.

Transcript

Today, we’re going to explore three striking examples of resilience and creativity in the hydrogen sector: Ohio’s unwavering industry drive despite federal uncertainty, Denmark launching a landmark low-carbon hydrogen plant, and the U.S. pioneering solar-hydrogen generators powering high-endurance drones. All three stories highlight real progress while reminding us that hydrogen’s future belongs not just to optimists, but to those driven by economics and innovation—ready to build, compete, and solve.

Let’s begin in the heart of North America with Ohio—a state where hydrogen ambition is moving forward, even as federal support stands on shaky ground. In the last two years, the Biden administration’s $7 billion plan for regional hydrogen hubs lit a fire under local innovation, including the ARCH2 Appalachian hub touching multiple Ohio communities. However, with political change placing federal dollars in limbo and two hubs abruptly cancelled, Ohio’s industry faces a high-stakes test: will the business case thrive without Washington’s guarantee?

Local leaders say yes. At the Ohio Fuel Cell and Hydrogen Coalition, held recently at Marysville’s Honda Heritage Center, Bill Whittenberger, executive director, called the federal funding a nice-to-have, but not a necessity: “We’re building businesses in this state regardless… there’s a strong business case for all the things we’re doing here.” This is a state determined to bet on the core strengths of hydrogen—decarbonizing steel and glassmaking, expanding fuel cell options for buses and trucking, and feeding new energy to the region’s data centers.

That business case is visible in projects like American Electric Power’s partnership with Bloom Energy, rapidly acquiring up to one gigawatt of fuel cells for data centers in central Ohio. “Speed to power trumps all other things,” says AEP’s Amy Koscielak—proving that in high-value computing, hydrogen’s resilience beats waiting for slow infrastructure upgrades. While these early centers run on natural gas, the readiness to switch to hydrogen is there, and it’s backed by regulatory approval from the Public Utilities Commission.

Automakers like Honda continue to deliver fuel cell hybrid vehicles out of Marysville, even if most wind up in California for now. Gary Robinson, Honda’s sustainability VP, is realistic: battery EVs rule for conventional mobility, but trucks, buses, and heavy equipment are “perfect candidates for hydrogen.” The company is exploring shipping and aviation, too, where endurance and refueling speed matter most.

Electrolysis projects, from Millennium Reign Energy in Dayton to Plug Power’s wind-driven hydrogen plant in Texas, reflect diverse routes to clean fuel. And Independence Hydrogen is looking to the state’s industrial waste streams—with the INEOS KOH plant in Ashtabula producing hydrogen as a byproduct, ready for purification and compression. Their biggest barrier is not technology or capital, but finding reliable offtakers.

Even as federal funding wavers and tax incentives remain uncertain, Ohio’s project pipeline keeps moving. The demand side is still a hurdle—most companies would love more customers, but there’s little doubt that hard-to-electrify sectors see hydrogen as essential to modern industry. The business case, built on competitive pricing and speed-to-market, remains viable.

On the other side of the Atlantic, Denmark has just brought online one of Europe’s rare low-carbon hydrogen plants—the HySynergy project in Fredericia. It’s more than a technical feat: it’s a sign that European hydrogen dreams are moving from concept to reality, even as the continent faces project delays and market skepticism.

HySynergy, using eight electrolysers powered entirely by solar and wind, produces about eight tonnes of hydrogen daily. This clean fuel is destined for a nearby refinery and for shipment to Germany. Hydrogen, championed as the decarbonization solution for industry and heavy transport, lives up to its environmental appeal here: zero carbon emissions at the point of use, just water vapor as a byproduct.

The journey wasn’t smooth—scheduled to open in 2023, HySynergy suffered multiple delays. Yet with just four plants like it operating in Europe (according to the IEA, none bigger than a megawatt until now), this 20-megawatt facility is a leap forward. It is not just a pilot—it is a scalable launchpad, with upgrades possible up to 350 megawatts as Everfuel’s CEO Jakob Korsgaard pushes the limits of ambition.

The plant’s economics remain challenging. High electricity costs for electrolyzers, limited output, and a market still far from reaching full commercial scale mean green hydrogen often costs much more than fossil alternatives. Larger scale and more political support could change this equation. Korsgaard urges strong EU implementation of the RED III directive—targeting 42.5 percent renewables in energy consumption by 2030, with hydrogen as a key pillar.

Outside China, which leads the sector in scale and speed, Europe’s hydrogen ramp-up is slower, and only a fraction of announced projects are expected to operate by 2030. The future depends on the intersection of technical progress, cost reductions, and policy momentum. Denmark’s achievement today stands as proof that with resilience and forward-thinking regulation, clean hydrogen can and will take its place.

Let’s turn back to the U.S.—but this time, the focus is on advanced technology, not federal politics. Sesame Solar, a Michigan-based innovator, has unveiled a trailer-sized solar hydrogen generator: a nanogrid that can be deployed in minutes to produce hydrogen fuel where it’s needed most. The system is designed for long-endurance drone operations, shrinking the supply chain and reshaping military and surveillance logistics.

Traditional drones, whether battery or fuel cell-powered, face serious constraints. Battery drones need frequent recharging, with endurance limited to a couple of hours. Hydrogen-powered fuel cell drones, like the Heven AeroTech Z1, stretch endurance to eight or ten hours—but fueling logistics were always the stumbling block. Previous field operations required transport of pressurized hydrogen cylinders: risky, costly, and complicated.

Sesame Solar’s nanogrid is a game-changer. It draws water out of the air via atmospheric water generation, then uses solar power to electrolyze this water into hydrogen and oxygen. It stores hydrogen safely in solid metal hydride form—sponges that absorb hydrogen gas at low pressure, minimizing combustion risk. These hydrides can be kept for months, offering frontline energy supply for military patrols, disaster response, or remote industrial operations.

The nanogrid also integrates satellite communications, edge computing, and radar—making it a true mobile base station for drone fleets. The field setup time is under fifteen minutes, and the included drones carry ten pounds of sensor payload with a takeoff weight of fifty-five pounds. Operational claims push for continuous surveillance and real-world deployment, with field stretches lasting six months or more.

Most critically, the system eliminates reliance on traditional fuel supply chains. No more $400/gallon diesel flown to remote bases. No more fragile logistics in contested or disaster-stricken territory. This technology could empower not only aerial drones, but also ground robots, expanding the range of autonomous vehicles exponentially.

This kind of innovation doesn’t just support the U.S. military; it opens new markets for commercial surveillance, industrial inspections, agriculture, and disaster relief. Solid-state hydrogen storage and instant, on-site hydrogen production move the technology closer to price parity with fossil fuels, especially as battery limitations grow clearer against higher-power, longer-range use cases.

Every one of these stories—the Ohio hub projects, Denmark’s HySynergy launch, Sesame Solar’s nanogrid—speaks to one elementary truth: hydrogen succeeds when business fundamentals dovetail with technical progress. But the obstacles are formidable. High production costs for green hydrogen remain the prime barrier. Delays, policy hiccups, and shifting incentives (whether from the U.S. DOE, European regulators, or state authorities) threaten timelines and market confidence.

Early movers have two levers to play. First: blend revenue streams. Ohio’s strategy, pairing hydrogen generation with fuel cells for fast-growing data centers, shows how hydrogen doesn’t need to go it alone—hybrid operating models help defend margins and scale demand. In Denmark, sequencing electrolyser expansion with stepwise market commitment avoids overbuild and stranded assets.

Second: target “anchor demand” in hard-to-electrify markets. Trucks, buses, industrial equipment—these sectors cannot decarbonize through batteries alone. Fuel cell vehicles, supported by fast hydrogen infrastructure growth, offer unmatched utility and endurance. In the drone world, battery cycles and charging times are incompatible with real operational needs. Hydrogen solves technical and market pain points simultaneously.

The competitive edge increases with new storage and generation methods. Solid hydride storage and atmospheric water generation, combined with fast deployment, mean longer runtimes, lower risk, and new business models. The technology is still maturing, but each step forward opens wider opportunity sets: long-range robotics, rapid-dispatch emergency response, scalable industrial fueling, and more.

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