National Hydrogen Strategy Issues Papers

Australia should seek to develop country to country relationships at both governmental and industry level with potential off-take partner countries such as Japan, Korea and Singapore.

For example, Singapore is currently commissioning its own Hydrogen Study and there could be Austrade assisted liaison between the Australian National Hydrogen Strategy Task Force and the lead Singaporean agency, Economic Development Board (EDB).

Developing an Australian domestic market for hydrogen promotes scale to reduce unit costs which in turn lays the foundations for competitively priced hydrogen exports.

In supporting the above pathway, ARENA has now developed a strong and growing pool of hydrogen expertise . Therefore, in terms of corporate knowledge ARENA is in an excellent position to expand its current support for the development of Australia’s hydrogen export industry.

ARENA should be granted additional “Hydrogen focussed” grant funding and its mandate should be extended for at least 3 years beyond its current expiry of June 2022.

Government, through its agencies such as CSIRO and ARENA should support research which identifies and develops key emerging markets for green hydrogen which Australia is well positioned to serve.

A prime example of this is the growing international interest in the potential role of the renewable hydrogen carrier “Green Ammonia” to emerge as a carbon free marine bunker fuel.

This opportunity has only just recently come into focus as a result of new Greenhouse Gas reduction policies for shipping as established in April last year by the International Maritime Organisation.

Australia, working with a key maritime country such as Singapore, could cooperate in leading research into the use of Green Ammonia as carbon free bunker fuel.

The challenge in the short run, whilst the competitiveness of hydrogen as a fuel faces costs challenges, is to not hinder market development via the imposition of government charges.

Therefore in the short to medium term the best way to ensure widespread benefit is to encourage investment in this new zero carbon fuel supply chain by Australia’s huge and cashed up superannuation investment funds.

The key elements of this total fuel supply chain, from the upstream wind and solar farms through to the ammonia production and export plants, all exhibit the classic features of infrastructure investments which are of great interest to superannuation investment funds.

Once the H2 industry has reached maturity and is competitive with other fuel supply sources, then consideration could be given to Government revenue imposts.

Large scale exports will drive down the unit costs per kg H2 not only for export customers but also for local users.

Low cost and carbon free H2 will be a key enabler in the development of energy intensive manufacturing industries in Australia. Examples include steel making, aluminium production and chemicals manufacturing.

There is much global interest in the concept of “Green Chemistry”. The Australian Government , through its key agencies such as Austrade, could lead an international marketing program promoting Australia’s ready supply of inexhaustible amounts of low cost, zero carbon hydrogen as a foundation upon which to base the new Green Chemistry industries of the carbon constrained 21st Century. This could lead to massive jobs creation in Australia.

The 50% targets are very achievable if Australia works with its key export customers to develop “total supply chain solutions”.

This would see customer off-take groups from Japan, Korea and Singapore Joining Australian institutions in investing in the upstream Australian wind and solar farms and the hydrogen/ammonia production and export plants.