Adani taps little known Melbourne start-up to help deliver “world’s cheapest” green hydrogen

Melbourne-based company Cavendish Renewable Technology has hitched its wagon to the renewable hydrogen subsidiary of Indian juggernaut, Adani Group, inking a “significant” deal to take its electrolyser technology from the lab to production at a gigawatt-scale.

Cavendish, or CRT, says it has signed a technology development and licencing agreement with Adani New Industries Limited (ANIL) for the development and commercialisation of CRT’s electrolysers, which are pitched as innovative and “low cost.”

CRT says this will allow it to fast-track its research activities and shorten the commercialisation pathway in the “grossly underserviced” APAC region market.

Adani – best known for its controversial coal mine in the Galilee Basin in Queensland, established the ANIL subsidiary in January, following the promise made a few months earlier by Gautam Adani that his conglomerate would invest $70 billion in renewable hydrogen over the next 10 years.

Part of this plan involves the establishment of a vertically integrated 5GW electrolyser manufacturing plant in India – dubbed the “Electrolyser Gigafactory.”

ANIL says it has selected CRT as an electrolyser technology partner to meet increasing demand in India and the Middle East North Africa region.

The agreement covers a range of electrolyser technologies, including alkaline electrolysers (AEL), polymer exchange membrane (PEM), Anion Exchange Membranes (AEM), and CRT’s ‘C Cell’ technology for mass-scale production.

According to CRT’s website, its C-Cell design (patent pending) is a platform approach that can be used for PEM/AEM/AEL electrolysers and can be tailored for use in redox flow batteries and fuel cell applications.

CRT claims the projected price of its C-Cell electrolyser is less than $200/kW when produced at a scale, “breaking a major barrier for green H2 economy.”

CRT chief Ani Kulkarni says the “significant” contract with Adani comes at the beginning of what will be “a golden era” for hydrogen.

“We believe this contract would underpin clean technology collaborations between two key economies in the APAC region,” Kulkarni says.

“It is a great international endorsement of the activities of CRT’s experienced team which consists of industry experts with core hydrogen research backgrounds in addition to significant engineering and capital market experience.”