South Australia receives 60 proposals for Whyalla green hydrogen plan

The South Australia Labor government says it has received 60 different proposals from organisations around the world on its $593 million hydrogen jobs plan for Whyalla, and will now study these to decide on whether to modify, expand or improve on its plans.

The Malinauskas government went to the recent election with a controversial proposal for a government-funded hydrogen hub at Whyalla that would include a 250MW electrolyser and a 200MW hydrogen-fuelled power station.

The controversy over the proposal centred around the fact that it was government funded, and questions about whether a hydrogen fuelled power station makes sense in the current grid, although the recent surge in international and local gas prices may have caused some to rethink that equation.

Labor’s proposal also stood in contrast to the previous Liberal government’s plan for a privately-led, but government supported renewable energy hub at Port Bonython, focused more on hydrogen exports and other green industries that attracted indicative support from a large group of big international players.

Last month, Labor put out a call for ideas on how it could put its plans into effect, although it did remain vague about the colour of the hydrogen sought – which appeared to be both green (from renewables), or blue (from gas with the promise of carbon capture).

The surging gas price appears to have concentrated the focus on green, with a new government statement saying the “pioneering project” will help accelerate South Australia’s green hydrogen industry, and unlock the development of a $20 billion pipeline of renewable energy projects.

State premier Peter Malinauskas says the proposals cover the technical, system and commercial aspects of the project, and have come from global green hydrogen operators, large scale renewable energy developers, local industry and organisations with links to universities for research, training, and development.

The next step will be to identify favoured concepts and then launch a series of procurement tenders to deliver the chosen design of the project.

“It is clear our bold vision for hydrogen has captured the imagination of the world,” Malinauskas said in a statement.

“The high interest in the Market Sounding Process has demonstrated the level of interest in the state’s hydrogen jobs plan and leaves little doubt that the green hydrogen industry in South Australia is on the up and up.

“We have positioned our State as a world leader in renewable energy, and the green hydrogen industry is the next step as we head towards net zero carbon emissions.

Just before the election, the former Liberal government revealed the key partners in its planned $13 billion hydrogen hub at Port Bonython, with plans for up to 3GW of hydrogen electrolysers by 2030.

The companies involved in that partnership included Fortescue Future Industries, Origin Energy, Santos and H2U, along with international companies such as Eneos, Chiyoda, Mitsubishi and AMP Energy.

The Liberal government had promised a $67 million “strategic investment” in the project to grease the wheels of the private investment, and it appears Labor will go ahead with that support, at the same time as pushing ahead with its Whyalla proposal.

South Australia had previously short-listed seven major renewable hydrogen projects for the Port Bonython Hydrogen Hub which it said could leverage “tens of billions” of dollars of investment, and produce more than 1.5 million tonnes of green hydrogen a year.

South Australia sourced more than 65 per cent of its electricity demand from wind and solar over the last 12 months, and will likely reach the equivalent of 100 per cent with five years as new projects are delivered and the new transmission link to NSW is completed.