Hydrogen

Australian startup H2X is banking on bringing automotive manufacturing back to Australia with hydrogen. After its Warrego ute was met with startling fanfare last week, pv magazine Australia caught up with the company’s corporate affairs specialist, Tony Blackie.

As part of the Western Australian government’s 2021-22 Budget, Premier Mark McGowan announced a new $50 million fund to stimulate the growth of the state’s green hydrogen industry for domestic use and exports. The fund comes on top of several ongoing initiatives and includes funding for private industry feasibility studies, including one which will see bp repurpose its Kwinana Oil Refinery into a green fuels hub.

Developed by Australian scientists, the demonstrated system is claimed to achieve a solar-to-hydrogen efficiency of 20% at a levelised cost of hydrogen (LCOH) of $4.10/kg. The direct solar hydrogen generation technology is powered by a tandem perovskite-silicon solar cell with an unprecedented high open-circuit voltage of 1.271 V, and a power conversion efficiency of 24.3%.

Plans to create hydrogen by burning wood have swollen in New South Wales’ Hunter Valley, after sawmill offshoot, Sweetman Renewables, yesterday announced a $15 million deal with Singapore’s CAC-H₂ to construct the country’s largest wood-fed hydrogen production plant.

The European Union’s proposed carbon border tax on imports of energy-intensive goods could push up prices of steel, aluminium and raw materials, which could add costs to the supply chain for solar PV installations. In the longer run, however, the border tax could also offer solar PV manufacturers new opportunities to source materials with a lower carbon footprint.

Hydrogen vehicle maker H2X is set to unveil its Australian-developed fuel cell electric hybrid Warrego Ute in November.

A number of Fraunhofer institutes in Germany want to make green hydrogen more cost-competitive and are working to identify the best and most economical processes for the production of electrolysers. They intend to build a digital library of future-proof electrolyser manufacturing processes with which the investment costs and even the return on investment can be determined in advance depending on the planned production volume.

Canadian clean energy company Amp Energy has secured a lease agreement with Indigenous landowners to develop a solar farm and storage system in Whyalla, South Australia. The project is one of three sites which make up the company’s proposed Renewable Energy Hub of South Australia, announced in May.

Australia’s solar uptake is now forecast to reach 8.9 GW by 2025, on top of the 14 GW already installed, according to the Australian Electricity Market Operator.

Spanish energy giants Repsol and Enagás are planning to build an electrolyser based on photoelectrocatalysis at an industrial complex owned by the oil company in Puertollano in 2024. The device receives direct solar radiation and with a photoactive material it generates the electrical charges that cause the separation of the water molecule into hydrogen and oxygen.