Green hydrogen megaproject in SA discontinued

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Terry Kallis, founder of Kallis Energy Investments, confirmed over the weekend that his company’s 6 GW Moolawatana Green Hydrogen Project will not progress following an assessment of its water supply. 

“That assessment, which was foreshadowed in the original project announcement, has determined that the environmental and permitting risks associated with water supply and desalination were unacceptable. Hence, the project has been stopped,” Kallis posted on LinkedIn. 

The Moolawatana Green Hydrogen Project had proposed to construct a combined solar and wind farm, each with up to 3 GW of capacity, which would solely power electrolysers on 100,000 hectares just east of the northern Flinders Ranges. Kallis Energy had also planned to include a desalination plant at the site and, as Kallis noted, had already flagged water as a potential hurdle, which was later found to be insurmountable in the prefeasibility stage.

“Not all projects work and it is important that developers determine fatal flaws as early as possible in the project timeline and communicate this to stakeholders,” Kallis said. 

Kallis said he had considered alternative locations with better water prospects, but was unable to find anything suitable for the massive multi-gigawatt the scale sought. 

The discontinuance of the Moolawatana project will not impact the Murchison Renewable Hydrogen project in Western Australia, Kallis added, for which he is a co-founder.

The Murchison proposal involves up to 5.2 GW of combined onshore wind and solar energy and is targeting the production of two million tonnes per annum of green ammonia for export. The proposed site for the for that project is in the Northampton shire, at a site approximately 20 kilometres north of Kalbarri on the mid coast of WA.

Kallis said Murchison Renewable Hydrogen project is “full steam ahead.”

The company founder did not comment on another two major projects Kallis Energy is involved in, the offshore 2 GW Star of the South wind farm and the Starfish Hill Wind Farm in SA, but presumably these projects too are unaffected by the Moolawatana news.

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