Cummins Inc. has announced that in addition to recent investments in its plant in Fridley, Minnesota, the company is investing more than $1 billion across its U.S. engine manufacturing network in Indiana, North Carolina and New York.
The investment will upgrade those facilities to support the industry’s first “fuel-agnostic” engine platforms, which will run on low-carbon fuels, including natural gas, diesel and eventually hydrogen, helping decarbonize the nation’s truck and bus fleets.
The company will “begin manufacturing one of the key pieces of technology for green hydrogen production that will help decarbonize our economy and drive the clean energy transition – the electrolyzer,” Cummins President and CEO Jennifer Rumsey said in a statement announcing the investment.
Credit to administration, Congress
She credited support from the Biden administration and Congress, with legislation like the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act, for driving the clean energy economy forward and being critical to the company’s decarbonization efforts.
“The historic investments included in those pieces of legislation played a key role in our decision to manufacture products here in the U.S., creating more clean-tech jobs and positively impacting our communities,” Rumsey said.
“The electrolyzer production in Minnesota and investment in our Indiana, North Carolina and New York facilities are reflective of our dual-path approach of advancing both engine-based and zero-emission solutions – an approach that is best for all of our stakeholders and our impact on the planet. We can’t do this alone, and are grateful for the continued partnership and collaboration with congressional leaders and the Biden administration.”
More than half of all medium- and heavy-duty trucks on the road in the U.S. use Cummins engines, as do many buses and motorcoaches. This investment is intended to retain the thousands of current engineering and manufacturing jobs and support the creation of hundreds of new jobs in the company’s New York, North Carolina and Indiana plant, the company said.
New York, Minnesota plans detailed
The company highlighted its planned investments in its Jamestown Engine Plant in New York and its recent investments in Fridley, Minnesota. Information on investment in Indiana and North Carolina will be made public later.
Cummins’ plans to invest $452 million in its Jamestown Engine Plant in western New York, upgrading its 998,000 square-foot facility to produce what it calls the industry’s first fuel-agnostic internal combustion engine platform that leverages a range of lower carbon fuel types. The X15N is part of the new fuel-agnostic 15-liter engine platform produced at JEP.
At the Fridley facility, Accelera by Cummins – Cummins’ zero-emission technology brand – will soon manufacture electrolyzers, which are a critical piece of the green hydrogen economy.
Hydrogen produced by electrolyzers can power hydrogen fuel cell vehicles and is used in industrial processes like steel production. Building electrolyzers in Fridley helps to bring the supply chain for zero-emissions vehicles to the United States – particularly in heavy trucking industries – and provides hundreds of workers with good-paying jobs.
The Cummins Power Systems factory is a 1.1 million-square-foot full-service facility, concentrating on design, product, service engineering and manufacturing, located just north of Minneapolis. Established in 1969, Fridley employs over 900 and will dedicate 89,000 square feet of the existing facility to electrolyzer production starting April 24. This $10 million investment will support 100 new jobs by 2024.
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