Visitors to the African savanna might be lucky enough to spot a black rhinoceros foraging on twigs and underbrush. With binoculars they might see the brown-feathered, bobbing bodies of red-billed oxpeckers hopping around its torso.

It’s one of nature’s most striking symbiotic relationships. The oxpecker feeds on ticks on the rhino’s pebbly skin, and their “trik-quisss” vocalizations alert the poor-sighted mammal of potential approaching danger.

The North American electric grid lacks keratin horns and a leathery hide, but it is a behemoth – studded with ten thousand large power plants, millions of miles of transmission and hundreds of millions of end users.

Hydrogen electrolyzers will always be tiny compared to the grid, but just as the oxpecker benefits the rhino, and vice versa, electrolyzers can both benefit and be benefited by the grid – under the right conditions. Namely, Wholesale Pass-Through pricing.

That’s the conclusion of RHA’s joint report with Customized Energy Solutions, “Unlocking Electrolytic Hydrogen: Why Rate Design Determines Project Viability.”

In the US Pacific Northwest, Wholesale Pass-Through rate structures allow proton exchange membrane (PEM) hydrogen electrolyzers to provide value not just to hydrogen offtakers, but the electric grid as well. The analysis showed that rate structures weren’t just one of the levers for projects’ commercial success; they were the biggest lever.

Electrolyzers can bring more renewable energy online faster, because co-located solar photovoltaics wouldn’t need transmission interconnections. PEM electrolyzers can also provide flexible load, ramping down during peak-price periods to keep the overall hydrogen production cost lower while easing strain on the grid.

Wholesale pass-through rates were best for unlocking PEM electrolyzer economics (and by extension, grid benefits), even more so than a standard time-of-use rate plan based on a PG&E rate schedule. To pull from biology, wholesale pass-through rates unlocked more industrial symbiosis – with the grid and electrolyzer paralleling the case of the rhino and the oxpecker.