Hydrogen

An international consortium planning to build a 50 GW solar-and-wind energy hub in Australia’s southwest has announced it will partner with Korea’s largest electricity utility to advance the development of what would be one of the largest green hydrogen production facilities in the world.

Gas and oil heavyweight Woodside Energy has shelved two green hydrogen projects in Australia and New Zealand with a combined capacity of 2.3 GW, citing inadequate renewable energy generation capacity, revised environmental demands and challenging economics.

The South Australian Hydrogen Jobs Plan hydrogen power plant has secured development approval for the construction and operation of 250 MW electrolysers, a 100-tonne storage pipeline and a 200 MW hydrogen fuelled power plant.

Western Australian energy solutions provider Avid Group has signed a master supply agreement with United States-headquartered company Enervenue which manufactures nickel-hydrogen batteries it says are capable of more than 30,000 duty cycles at two to 12-hour discharge rates.

Lion Energy has struck a $10 million deal with Mitsubishi subsidiary DGA Energy Solutions Australia and Samsung C&T Corporation to jointly develop a green hydrogen generation and refuelling hub at the Port of Brisbane in Queensland.

Brisbane-based renewables solutions company Sunshine Hydro has joined forces with the Central Queensland University to develop and trial technology that orchestrates long-duration storage and renewable energy ecosystems with implication for sustainable fuel production.

Fortescue has broken ground on a $75.5 million project in Western Australia’s Pilbara region that is to produce green iron using renewable hydrogen produced onsite through 1.4 MW of electrolyser capacity powered in part by the nearby 60 MW Chichester Solar Farm.

A proposal to build a renewable energy hydrogen project including 26 GW of solar and wind capacity in Western Australia’s Pilbara region is to benefit from a streamlined approvals process after it was awarded major project status by the federal government.

The first element of a clean energy hub being built next to the coal-fired Kogan power plant in Queensland is now fully operational with CS Energy confirming its 100 MW / 200 MWh Chinchilla battery energy storage system has commenced commercial operations.

A team of researchers based in Queensland has incorporated overload capacity and power-dependent efficiency of the electrolyser in a novel techno-economic model to calculate the levelised cost of hydrogen.