Formalising its plans  on Thursday (March 10), Universal Hydrogen said it will now take one to two years planning and constructing its new facilities, located at the Albuquerque International Sunport, with a goal to commerce full-scale manufacturing in 2024.

Valued at approximately $254m, the investment will see Universal Hydrogen manufacture its hydrogen storage modules, assemble airplane retrofit kits, perform aftermarket maintenance services, and manage administrative activities.

As well as boosting manufacturing, the site also includes access to a runway and the potential future reclamation of a rail spur south of the Sunport.

Jon Gordon, co-founder and General Counsel for Universal Hydrogen, said, “Hydrogen is the best and only scalable solution to truly decarbonise aviation, and we want to bring it to market decades sooner than anyone thought possible — by 2025.

“I can’t imagine a better place to be. We need a highly skilled workforce, and we need it immediately. We see New Mexico as a place that will give our employees an affordable, high quality of life with access to culture and the outdoors. It’s really a dream location.”

Of course, the site will also see a lot of opportunity brought to New Mexico. It is believed the construction project alone will generate over 1,200 jobs, and the manufacturing and distribution centre is expected to have an economic impact of over $700 million over the next 10 years.

Welcoming this, Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham, said, “This project puts New Mexico and Universal Hydrogen at the centre of the global effort to decarbonise transportation and aviation in particular.

“Hydrogen, solar, wind, and alternative energy are job-rich industries and New Mexico’s partnerships with these companies are part of a forward-thinking model to create a robust and diversified economy, while being a part of the solution when it comes to a changing climate.”

North American Hydrogen Summit

H2 View is taking its events platform to America’s original clean hydrogen hub of California. Together with the California Fuel Cell Partnership (CaFCP), we will stage our North American Hydrogen Summit in San Francisco on July 14-15.

As our summit theme Building Bridges: Hydrogen hubs and investment suggests, the event will explore the $8bn of funding announced to create at least four regional hydrogen hubs in the US. These hubs will turbo-charge the nation’s progress toward heavy trucking and industrial sectors that run without producing carbon pollution – and they may just provide the path forward to a hydrogen-fuelled future.

With California and Texas vying to be America’s hydrogen capital today, where are the hubs of tomorrow? Further still, what can other states, and countries, learn from California’s success story? And how can we build bridges to a successful flow of international investment?

Full information about this event including attendance and sponsorship packages can be found here.