Liquid Hydrogen Storage Aims at Winter Renewables
A UC Santa Barbara researcher's early-stage project seeks low-cost storage to carry solar and wind power across seasons.
Updated on Nov. 1, 2026 in Energy
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UC Santa Barbara assistant professor J. Tyler Mefford received the 2026 Packard Fellowship for Science and Engineering, which provides nearly $1 million in unrestricted research funding over five years. Mefford is one of 20 early-career researchers selected this year. The research he plans to pursue is in its early stages and has not yet been demonstrated at scale.
Why it matters
Solar and wind generation is intermittent, so storing electricity for later use remains a central obstacle to renewable power. Mefford's project targets low-cost, liquid-based hydrogen storage as a way to hold renewable energy across seasons, including winter, and the fellowship lets him expand the work without restricted grant conditions.
The award itself is the only quantified item: nearly $1 million in unrestricted funding over five years for a cohort of 20 researchers. No efficiency, storage-capacity or cost-per-kilowatt-hour figure for the hydrogen system has been reported, so the technical claims remain unmeasured at this stage.
The players
J. Tyler Mefford
UC Santa Barbara assistant professor working on electrochemical liquid-based hydrogen storage for renewable energy.
UC Santa Barbara
University of California campus in Santa Barbara where Mefford conducts his energy storage research.
David and Lucile Packard Foundation
Philanthropic foundation that established the Packard Fellowship for Science and Engineering in 1988.
The details
Mefford's approach uses renewable-generated electricity to cycle hydrogen into liquid organic molecules electrochemically, storing the hydrogen in a liquid carrier rather than as a compressed gas. His team plans to screen multiple materials at once to see which liquids store hydrogen most effectively. Electrochemical cycling means using an electric current to drive chemical reactions that add and release hydrogen, which is what allows stored hydrogen to be converted back into usable energy later.
Timeline
The Packard Fellowship was established in 1988.
Mefford's 2026 Packard Fellowship award is the event this story reports.
The fellowship funding runs for a five-year period.
The Tech Race
Hydrogen and other long-duration storage approaches are being pursued by many research groups as renewable generation grows, and Mefford's liquid-carrier method is one such effort in an early stage. The fellowship places his work among ambitious early-career projects rather than a commercial deployment race.
This is a research-stage award, so no storage product or service is available to consumers. Any practical effect on household energy would depend on the hydrogen storage method being demonstrated and scaled, which the source does not give a timeline for.
The takeaway
Watch for published results from Mefford's group on the hydrogen storage materials they screen, since measured efficiency and cost figures will show whether the liquid-carrier approach can compete on price. The fellowship's five-year timeline gives a benchmark for when such data could reasonably appear.
Further reading
Explore more on Energy coverage for the wider context of renewable power storage.
Source note: This article includes information reported by Edhat Santa Barbara.
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