A San Francisco-based company will open a Lycoming County plant early next year to manufacture mobile compressed-hydrogen storage tanks that fuel electricity generators.
The Verne Inc. plant in Muncy is expected to create at least 61 jobs and should be up and running within nine months, officials said.
The plant will build tanks in a former warehouse in the Marcellus Energy Park, an industrial park not far from Interstate 180.
The company plans to invest $4.5 million to open the plant, according to state news release.
Pennsylvania to provide incentives
The state will kick in almost $1.3 million in incentives - a $1 million loan, a $153,000 grant for machinery, equipment, job training, land and building improvements or related site preparation; and a $122,000 grant for job training. The company can also apply for research and development tax credits.
During a news conference shown online from inside the warehouse, Verne co-founder and chief technology officer David Jaramillo said the company aims to help address the nation’s “unprecedented energy mismatch between supply and demand.”
“This mismatch will continue to grow due to data centers, autonomous systems, advanced manufacturing and other sources,” Jaramillo said.
The tanks will supplement the existing nationwide grid of power lines, which “can’t handle all this (electrical) load,” he said.
Verne, 5 years old, wants to create “a decentralized energy network” that brings combustible hydrogen and generators to wherever they are needed, he said. The company builds generators elsewhere.
Process developed by Verne Inc.
The company developed a process that increases “the density of hydrogen by cooling and compressing the gas” to extremely low temperatures.
The new process makes the price of compressed hydrogen competitive with diesel fuel for on-site generators, Jaramillo said.
“It's the most efficient and lowest cost way to move that hydrogen around on a truck,” he said. “We leverage this cost advantage to offer energy as a service, and we can provide industrial-scale power within weeks, bringing in hydrogen fuel, (and) providing the generator to the customer site.”
Potential customers
Data centers, construction and energy-production sites, shipping ports and airports are potential customers, he said.
The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, southeast of San Francisco, helped develop the technology.
“And we leveraged that government-funded work,” Jaramillo said.
Companies like Amazon, Caterpillar, United Airlines and others funded the development of the work, he said.
“And we're now at a major inflection point where we need to go scale up production and deploy the technology,” he said.
'Lycoming County really stood out'
Jaramillo said Verne began searching for a location more than 18 months ago. The company considered sites in California, Nevada, Ohio and West Virginia, but “Lycoming County really stood out,” he said.
He cited the presence of the Pennsylvania College of Technology and PMF Industries in Williamsport and strong support from the Williamsport/Lycoming Chamber of Commerce. PMF can manufacture a variety of products out of metal. Penn College offers technical training.
Jaramillo said the company hopes to manufacture about 500 tanks by the end of 2026 and ramp up to about 4,000 in 2027.
“And then our plan is to stay here,” he said. “We can either expand within this facility or go to neighboring sites.”
Shapiro: Plant will add to state’s legacy of energy production
Gov. Josh Shapiro said the plant will add to the state’s legacy of energy production that started with “Benjamin Franklin’s kite,” moved on to coal and natural gas.
That history lifted Pennsylvanians out of poverty, boosted the American labor movement and “kept the lights on for families all across this great nation,” Shapiro said.
“I want our children to not only read about that rich legacy of energy production in the history books,” Shapiro said. “I want them to see energy as part of their future in this region.”
