Can Australia seize its hydrogen advantage in a clean energy world?
When the entire world is undergoing a major energy transition, Hydrogen, being a clean-burning fuel, and that can be used in transport, energy storage and electricity generation is gaining prominence over other sources of clean energy. Used as a fuel hydrogen produces no carbon emissions but only water.
Many countries in the world determined to phase out fossil fuels, are assiduously planning to build their hydrogen energy base. Australia has a natural advantage, because of having abundant sunshine and wind which makes it an ideal location to generate green hydrogen using clean energy and thus, has already become a front runner.
Though Europe and Australia are lead players in hydrogen production projects using water electrolysis, Australia has become significantly active due to its good resource conditions for solar PV and wind electricity generation. It already has the world’s second highest number of planned electrolyser capacity projects which it hopes, will be online by 2030.
Whereas, in 2022, Australia emerged as the first country in the world to export hydrogen, as per International Energy Agency’s World Energy Outlook 2022, the country is believed to become the second largest net-exporter of low-emissions hydrogen by 2030 and the largest by 2050.
Australian Government is lending direct support of more than A$1.3 billion committed to accelerate hydrogen industry development. In 2022, hydrogen projects carried A$266 billion worth of potential investment, which was almost double than 2021 levels.
There are opportunities galore for Australia from hydrogen exports. As per current projections, the demand for hydrogen export from Australia could well cross 3 million tonnes annually by 2040 with a potential to contribute up to A$10 billion each year to the economy.
Australia has the resources to cater to the world. About three percent of its land of 262,000 km2 is appropriate for green hydrogen production, as per its accessibility to renewable electricity and water supplies. This could be utilised to produce more than projected global demand for 2050.
Australia is already developing a ready international market to export hydrogen. Being geographically close to key emerging hydrogen import markets in Asia and having built international partnerships to advance technologies and explore the development of international hydrogen supply chains around the world, the country is already on way to developing a ready international market to export.
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