The City of Lancaster recently won the U.S. Department of Energy’s inaugural H2 Twin Cities Initiative with its H2 – TRANS – PACIFIC Team proposal to develop clean hydrogen solutions for energy sustainability and strengthening ties across the Pacific.

Through this trans-Pacific Mentor-Mentee partnership of municipal leaders, Lancaster and Namie, Japan, have pledged to share best practices and strategies to accelerate hydrogen and fuel cell use in Hawaiʻi County. Namie and Lancaster are the world’s first hydrogen cities and have attracted corporate, government, and academic sponsors to help build out their infrastructure.

“Climate extinction is not a problem that Lancaster, Namie, or Hawaiʻi can solve alone. But together, we may lead the way for the rest of the world to join us before it’s too late,” said R. Rex Parris, mayor of the City of Lancaster in a press release.

Over the past decade, the City of Lancaster has transformed into a renewable energy leader, attracting more than $2 billion of investment in cutting-edge renewable and clean energy projects.

The three municipalities aim to make significant progress toward carbon neutrality by 2035. Although they represent diverse geographies, demographics, economic drivers, and levels of hydrogen deployment, they share a common bond of being early adopters of hydrogen demonstration projects through visionary leadership. Unfortunately, their communities have also all faced an increasing number of natural disasters—many caused by rapid climate change.

The mentee municipality of Hawaiʻi County, which is perhaps the most vulnerable of the three to natural disasters due to rising sea levels and volcanic activity, also has the greatest diversity and wealth of renewable energy resources that can be converted into hydrogen production.

In a press release Hawaiʻi County Mayor Mitch Roth said, “Our administration remains resolute in our efforts to convert to hydrogen, the highest and most available form of energy in the universe.  We are starting by working to turn municipal waste into hydrogen energy to fuel our County fleet and reduce the waste in our landfills. Next, we plan to generate large amounts of hydrogen from geothermal energy to replace fossil fuel-based electricity generation and decarbonize air travel emissions. We live in one of the most beautiful and pristine places on the planet, and as leaders, it’s our job to care for this place by being thoughtful stewards, and hydrogen conversion is just one example of that.”