Backer of huge Australian green hydrogen projects lands funds to create “digital twin”

The backer of Australia’s most ambitious green hydrogen projects has landed another $1.56 million in federal grant funding, this time to build a digital twin of its plans to guide other developers through the process. 

Intercontinental Energy is spending just over $3 million on a computer simulation of its “node” idea, a Lego-like building system with a hydrogen production core surrounded by solar and wind.

The company’s head of engineering Richard Colwill says building a digital twin simulation as part of the engineering design will save money and time up and down the chain of the nascent industry. 

“We are advancing digital and engineering design work that gives developers and investors more certainty on cost, performance and timing, at a time when fuel security and AI power needs are front of mind,” he said in a statement. 

Intercontinental speculates that digital twins might save as much as 10-20 per cent on capital and operating costs, on top of the 10 per cent the standardised nodes might carve off capex by avoiding bespoke designs. 

It says standardised design and modular construction could be a blueprint for projects in coastal and remote regions.

“Recent customer interest is already driving this development pathway for the Node,” it says, adding that it’s signed a licence deal for the system.

Node design for giga-scale green hydrogen projects. Image: Intercontinental Energy

The green hydrogen industry doesn’t have any standardised, repeatable plans yet, with projects inevitably being first of their kind thanks to the rapidly changing technology available, the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) brief says.

If developers can bridge that gap, by being able to plug new tech specifications into an existing digital framework, the hope is that it might speed up the kind of mammoth projects Intercontinental is backing. 

Intercontinental is behind the 70 gigawatt (GW) wind, solar and hydrogen Western Green Energy Hub (WGEH) in the Nullabor, alongside CWP Global and Mirning Green Energy. 

In the Pilbara, it recently received another $21 million from ARENA for the Australian Renewable Energy Hub (AREH), a move that breathed life into the 26 GW wind, solar and hydrogen project after BP quit it last year. 

WGEH is the most advanced of the two projects, with planning applications in front of the state regulator and the federal EPBC. 

Plans for as many as 35 “nodes” of around 2-3 GW of wind and solar and 1.5 GW electrolyser and/or data centre have attracted enough offtake interest in green ammonia to justify getting the first stage done by 2033. 

It would cover around 2.3 million hectares of pastoral leases and crown lands, stretching hundreds of kilometres in and around the Nullarbor from north-west of Eucla, near the border with South Australia, towards Cocklebiddy and north of the Eyre Highway to south of the Trans Australian Railway. 

It would be built in stages over 30 years and aims to produce 3.5 million tonnes of green hydrogen a year.

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