NSW attracts 6GW of renewable electrolyser proposals for new hydrogen hubs

The New South Wales government says it has attracted nearly 6GW of green electrolyser proposals for its planned hydrogen hubs in the Hunter Valley and the Illawarra.

Treasurer and energy minister Matt Kean says the recent call for expressions of interest from hydrogen investors investors had generated more than $4 billion in potential investment proposals.

This amounted to 5.9GW of electrolyser capacity, which was more than eight times the scale of the state government’s 700MW target.

“The market has spoken,” Kean said in a statement. “This is an overwhelming level of commercial interest and it shows our policies are sending the right signals to energy investors, making NSW the go to state for energy investment.”

The overwhelming response from the industry is similar to that for the state’s planned renewable energy zones, which are being created to manage the transition of the country’s most coal dependent state to renewables, which could happen within a decade.

Calls for interest for multiple zones have elicited proposals far exceeding the proposed capacity, often by a factor of more than ten, and more than $100 billion of renewable and storage projects were proposed for the Hunter REZ alone earlier this year.

The latest EoI for green hydrogen proposals attracted 21 different projects that could produce almost 268,000 tonnes of green hydrogen a year, most of it focused for use in heavy industry and heavy transport.

Acting premier Paul Toole said this huge commercial interest shows how much the regions are set to benefit with renewable energy and new low carbon technologies.

“It also represents a huge export potential for our state, with the international market for green hydrogen expected to meet 24 per cent of the global energy demand by 2050, estimated to be worth $900 billion,” he said in a statement.

The NSW government has committed $70 million to accelerate the development of Hydrogen Hubs in NSW, starting with the Hunter and Illawarra.

Other state governments have implemented similar strategies, seeking to grab a share of the anticipated boom in the domestic market, and also in exports such as green hydrogen and green ammonia.

As a side note, Kean also tweeted on Monday that he had tested positive for Covid. “I’ve dodged COVID for so long, but It’s finally caught up with me. I’ll miss parliament this week, but will use the time to prepare (remotely) for the NSW budget!”