It lives! Gigawatt-scale green hydrogen project revived with new land deal

A Scottish developer is rehashing a green hydrogen project in Western Australia that it first announced in 2022, this time adding a land deal. 

The then-MercurHy project was announced in December 2022 as a vision for a three-stage development of a 1 gigawatt (GW) electrolyser, but the developer Xodus needed capital and infrastructure partners to take the idea forward.

This week, the state government gave the project another portion of land at Oakajee in the mid-west, bringing the total site to 16,000 hectares.

The project also comes with a new focus on domestic hydrogen for mining and heavy transport first, and ammonia exports second. 

Xodus says the land allocation paves the way for it to get cracking on the project under a new brand called Warradarge Energy, as it negotiates power supply agreements with an existing wind farm (pictured above).

It says it does have offtake partners onboard.

In March 2022, Xodus enlisted ASX-listed VRX Silica as a possible offtake partner to explore the future supply of renewable hydrogen to power the company’s silica sand projects and potential associated manufacturing, and to make net-zero glass and maybe even solar panels. 

That non-binding MOU was extended to the end of 2024 when it was allowed to lapse.

The developer is now working with industry partners and landowners to deliver the project, said Xodus executive and Warradarge Energy advisor Simon Allison in a statement.

“Xodus has played a central role in the technical and commercial development of the project, overseeing feasibility, concept design, approvals and the integration of renewable energy sources,” he said. 

But the company has released no other information about its plans for the site. Its hydrogen involvement in Australia since the original 2022 announcement has been a localised hydrogen market study released late last year. 

Renew Economy has reached out to the company for more details. 

All chat no deals

Western Australia is a green hydrogen dreamland – or graveyard, depending on perspective – where concepts abound but where few, to date, have committed real money, planning applications or realistic timelines. 

The federal hydrogen production tax incentive of $2 per kilogram only being passed by the Senate in February, and the kinds of very-large scale renewables projects in Western Australia’s industrial mining areas proved challenging to build at pace.

It’s meant downstream green energy industries, such as hydrogen, have not fulfilled the promises made in the early 2020s. 

State energy minister Amber-Jade Sanderson recently implored companies not to give up on the idea, just as companies such as Fortescue and BP are pulling back from commitments. 

But it’s also a sector known for players offering a lot of chat and not much action. 

Recently hydrogen dreamer Infinite Green Energy called in administrators over a debt dispute with shareholders, but it had been promising construction and production for years that never came.  

In amongst the idealists are some large plausible projects, however.

The 70 GW Western Green Energy Hub (WEGH) around Eucla in Western Australia’s south east, and the 26 GW Australian Renewable Energy Hub in the Pilbara to the north, are backed by Intercontinental Energy and WEGH is now going through the federal environmental approvals process.

The first 1.5GW stage of the Murchison Green Hydrogen project, a development owned by Danish giant Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, is also deeply in planning mode, most recently being granted the all-clear to make a number of changes to its design before undergoing assessment for federal environmental approval.

It’s been in the EPBC queue since 2022, but has cut its turbines to 522 but is using more powerful machines to achieve the 3.2GW of capacity, and 

The original plans for the project, which joined the EPBC queue in May 2022, proposed to install around 700 wind turbines with an estimated 3.7 gigawatts (GW) installed capacity and roughly 1.5 GW of solar over an area of around 10,000 hectares of solar panels.

It plans to get the same 1.5GW of solar from a smaller footprint thanks to better design.

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