At the half-way mark of 2025, Australia is well down the road to its target of 82 per cent renewables by 2030.
Onshore wind and large-scale solar, and solar panels installed on the nation’s rooftops are helping to supply an average of more than 40 per cent of the electricity used in Australia’s main grid. Big and small batteries and other energy storage technologies are rapidly joining the effort.
But looking past 2030, the task of pushing to 100 per cent net renewables – and to a net zero grid by 2050 – will require a different mix of technologies and a fresh wave of innovation, collaboration and decarbonisation.
Three technologies considered vital to achieving this “last mile” of decarbonisation – the most challenging phase of carbon emissions mitigation – are wind energy, hydrogen, and carbon capture.
Each of these technologies face their own challenges. For wind energy, which is well established as one of the lowest-cost sources of onshore energy generation all around the world, is currently working hard to establish itself as an offshore technology.
In Australia, this journey is only just making its start, with six development zones declared in waters off Victoria, New South Wales, Tasmania and Western Australia, and plenty of developers seeking to get projects through the nation’s very first round of auctions and approvals.
In Victoria, where the first projects will be built, the federal Labor government has awarded 12 feasibility licences to offshore wind projects proposed for the Gippsland declared zone and one feasibility licence for the Southern Ocean zone.
The Victorian government, in April, set out its plan to launch an offshore wind generation auction process in September of this year, following a confidential Registration of Interest (ROI) process for feasibility licence holders.
Onshore wind energy has plenty of innovation left to achieve, too, in the areas of generation efficiency, mitigation of biodiversity damage and loss and new approaches to community benefit sharing and the establishment of social licence.
For hydrogen, the challenge is steeper and much less advanced. In Australia, after a few years of little to no progress – and even some backwards steps – momentum is once again building.
States including Western Australia, South Australia and Tasmania are once again declaring high hopes of building major green hydrogen industries, while innovators – and one iron-ore billionaire – continue to chip away at promising new technologies.
The federal government has also been supportive of Australia’s hydrogen ambitions, setting aside $A2 billion in the 2024-25 budget to Hydrogen Headstart, with a second round to be launched in late 2025.
A federal production tax incentive of $2 per kilogram is also on offer for eligible hydrogen production, while more than $500 million has been allocated to support hydrogen hubs in regional Australia.
Carbon capture technology, meanwhile, is increasingly being explored as a crucial method of carbon abatement in the race to cut emissions.
Australia is home to the world’s largest CCS project at Chevron’s Gorgon LNG facility in Western Australia, but much more investment and innovation is needed to improve costs and efficacy of CCS as a carbon reduction tool.
The WA government has a CCUS Action Plan, with a promise to spend $26 million to support two projects, including one associated with Woodside’s Burrup Hub gas development in the Pilbara.
And Australia’s leading CCS research organisation, CO2CRC recently hailed the re-election of the Albanese government as an opportunity to make CCUS “a core pillar of Australia’s climate and future gas strategies.”
All three technologies – CCS, hydrogen and wind energy – need more funding, more innovation, more collaboration and rapid scaling up if the world is to achieve its goal of net zero emissions and to halt dangerous global warming.
To this end, these three technologies are the subject of three world-leading summits, being held concurrently in Melbourne on July 17 and 18 with an expected attendance of more than 8,000 participants including global industry leaders, policymakers, investors, and innovators.
Australia Wind Energy 2025, Connecting Hydrogen APAC 2025 and Carbon Capture APAC Summit 2025 are being held at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre, and will feature more than 200 exhibitors across more than eight national pavilions.
The three summits will cover government policy and market strategies, global supply chain and cooperation, business models and cross-sector synergy, finance and investment, commercialisation and infrastructure, and asset management.
The summits will also offer two field trips, including to the Port of Hastings, for a tour of the proposed site for the Victorian Renewable Energy Terminal – the state government’s preferred location for a dedicated assembly port to support the offshore wind industry.
A second field trip offers a visit to Toyota Australia’s Hydrogen Experience Centre, in Altona, providing an in-depth look at hydrogen technology and the role it can play a range of mobility options through to stationary energy generators.
Across the three events, a Start-up Innovation Challenge on the morning of July 17 serves as a vital platform for emerging companies in wind, hydrogen, and CCUS to showcase breakthrough ideas before a panel of industry experts and receive valuable feedback.
Attendees can buy an All Access pass to the co-located events, here, for a bigger discount.
For queries or concerns regarding the registration process or the requirements for attendees, contact [email protected].
This article is sponsored by Leader Associates
