hydrogen

As the vision of Australia becoming a leading hydrogen exporter sharpens, questions about the best form in which to send our offering into the world arise. Just in the last fortnight, a Western Australia company has come out with a strong case for a new, largely overlooked form: compressed hydrogen. The ‘curve-ball’ has piqued the interest of many. “I think they’re really doing some very exciting work,” Scott Hamilton, from the Smart Energy Council, told pv magazine Australia.

The Italian gas contractor started to develop three green hydrogen projects in the southern Italian region of Apulia and has identified land for potential projects in Albania and Morocco.

London-based Eco Energy World plans to combine a 300 MW solar project in Australia with a 200 MW hydrogen plant and 100 MW of energy storage to export green hydrogen to the global market.

Ireland’s Fusion Fuel Green has agreed to set up a demonstrator plant in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu to generate cost-competitive green hydrogen.

Province Resources is pushing ahead quickly with its plan to develop a 1 GW hybrid solar PV and wind farm in Western Australia as part of a proposal to produce renewable hydrogen for domestic and foreign markets.

The facility is expected to be located in the state of Ceará and to be powered by around 3.6 GW of wind and solar facilities located in the region. The project developer is Australia-based Enegix Energy.

A scoping study has found that Global Energy Ventures’ compressed hydrogen ship is technically feasible and ‘highly competitive’ to transport the hyped future fuel at distances that conveniently connect Australia to Asian markets.

German energy company Steag is helping Thyssenkrupp decarbonize its steel production site in Duisburg-Walsum. Green hydrogen generation is expected to be powered by a mix of wind and solar power.

Solar pioneer Thierry Lepercq spoke with pv magazine about recent plans of the HyDeal consortium to deploy 95 GW of solar and 67 GW of hydrogen capacity in southern Europe by 2030. Record low green hydrogen prices are easily achievable as solar PV has already reached the required cost level and effects of scale in procurement and manufacturing of electrolyzer capacities will help reduce production costs, he says. Lepercq is also convinced that the consortium will begin selling solar-powered hydrogen at €1.5/kg when the initial supply to industrial customers begins in September 2022.

German energy provider EWE wants to set up a test cavern with a capacity of 500 cubic meters at a depth of 1,000 meters. It is scheduled to go into operation in spring 2022.