Trump’s Hydrogen Mystery

We’re joined today by Frank Wolak, CEO of perhaps the most crucial D.C. trade group for all things hydrogen: the Fuel Cell and Hydrogen Energy Association. The morning after Election Day we chatted about whether Trump 2.0 will be as receptive as members of Congress have been to hydrogen and the IRA’s tax credit for producing the fuel. Let’s look inside his crystal ball, shall we?

Simply put, will president-elect Donald Trump keep the IRA’s 45V tax credit in place?

So a couple things there. First, the production tax credit still has to be finalized and what they do about the tax credits, if anything, is a function of whether the Biden administration issues final guidance.

If they issue final guidance, then what that guidance says will determine what kind of reaction the Trump administration may have, whether to adjust it or tweak it.

The second thing: I think the tax credits fit into a question of the IRA broadly and hydrogen specifically. The Trump administration is going to be looking at the entirety of the IRA. There’s the question of what pushback hydrogen has in this administration and if it’s viewed as valuable or important or secondary, tertiary to other things. And I think we’ve yet to see that in the form of any platform.

So Trump’s view on hydrogen is a mystery then – how will that uncertainty impact hydrogen projects in development today?

The uncertainty that has been experienced by this industry predates the election outcome. The long wait for guidance has definitely slowed down the amount of investment. They’ve put many things on hold. This is not a secret.

What I’ll say is, the ability to regroup and fulfill the expectations that this industry had two or three years ago is hugely dependent on the outcome of the tax credit.

What do you think we’ll see companies do in this information vacuum? Will we see them double down on supporting the credit or potentially get out of hydrogen since it’s an emerging, nascent technology?

The doubling down on the tax credit depends on what the guidance looks like.

If the guidance looks flexible, the question is: how do you take that flexibility and make sure the Trump administration continues it and sees it as valuable or vital?

If the tax credit becomes rigid and stays rigid in the Biden administration, you’ll have a two step process – to unwind the rigidity and then also encourage the Trump administration to see the merits. If the guidance stays as stated, the work is harder.

The degree to which industry continues to make investments and says, “hey, we’re all in,” is a function of how these tax credits emerged. Are they going to really keep fighting and to keep the momentum going, or are the [credits] so limited that companies go, “look this is going to be very very hard to overcome in the U.S. so we’re going to take our investment elsewhere.”

You think we might see companies dip out of the hydrogen space over the credit’s outcome?

Mature long term players who are multinationals … are remaining extremely positive. They may adjust the sequence of their investments but they’re in this because they’re in hydrogen and want to be in this market as much as possible.

But those who saw this as an opportunity to come in and take advantage of tax credits are having those reactions of, “Should I invest? Do I look [at it] positively?” And that’s probably natural.