Singapore hydrogen tech startup SunGreenH2 eyes Melbourne talent with new hub

Singapore company SunGreenH2 is testing the Victoria market for talent and, possibly, sales for green hydrogen technology with a new manufacturing and research and development base in Melbourne’s high-tech industrial heartland of Clayton. 

The startup is developing nanotechnology to improve efficiency and lower the cost of electrolyser parts and intends to hire 30 people for a hardware manufacturing facility that will include R&D into on-site green hydrogen production.

SunGreenH2 co-founder and CEO Tulika Raj said in a statement the new base in Melbourne positions the company to hire top talent and tap into Victoria’s manufacturing ecosystem in Victoria.

The company is not seeking an exclusive relationship with Melbourne, however, trialling its electrodes with Chilean company Molymet, according to Bloomberg news. 

The  startup launched in 2020 in the middle of the pandemic and raised $2 million in seed funding last year, the same year it completed a prototype. 

It plans to test its first commercial electrolyzer with Naturgy Innovahub in Spain, as it looks for other partners in Australia and Singapore in 2023 to do the same.

SunGreenH2 is commercialising a technology that reduces the amount of expensive platinum needed for cathodes and ruthenium and and iridium for anodes by up to a third — all of which are usually used in proton exchange membrane (PEM) electrolysers as the catalyst — and adding in instead cheaper aluminium and nickel.

SunGreenH2 has two patent applications currently pending for the tech which, it says, doubles the amount of hydrogen produced while lowering the energy used by 10 per cent and reducing the capital cost by 50 per cent.

Fishing in a small talent pool

Victoria trade and investment minister Tim Pallas says the drawcard for SunGreenH2 is the state’s smarts. 

“We’re making sure startups know Victoria is the best place to grow and take the next step on their journey, regardless of their origin,” he said in a statement.

“Our skilled workforce and innovation focus draws the brightest minds from around the world, and that grows local jobs and our tech expertise.”

However, SunGreenH2 is competing for a small talent pool in the green hydrogen space. 

The ​​‘Hydrogen Skills Roadmap‘ from Swinburne University and the Victoria Hydrogen Hub, released last year, found that the talent most urgently in demand today are researchers who can spearhead projects into cheaper electrolysers, storage systems, and engines and processes that can use the fuel.

A significant renewable hydrogen industry is not expected until 2030 but there is enough activity in Australia already — such as the SunGreenH2 move — to justify investment in new curricula and training courses from primary school through to vocational trades, the report author Kerrin Pyror told RenewEconomy last year. 

Other high-tech hydrogen companies competing for talent in Melbourne include fellow-Singaporean Divigas, which makes hydrogen separation membranes, and CAC-H2.

Supporting this push are the Geelong Hydrogen Hub, a development at the Port of Geelong, and the Swinburne University of Technology Victorian Hydrogen Hub, a research centre set up with a $10 million grant from the state government in 2021.