Western Sydney Green Gas Project: bid for hydrogen gas site

Plans for a massive hydrogen gas site have been released for a western Sydney suburb. See where the facility could be built here.

Western Sydney Green Gas Project by Jemena Gas Networks

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Plans for a massive gas stockpile and extraction facility — which would be built in Western Sydney — are currently on exhibition.

The Western Sydney Green Gas Project by Jemena Gas would produce 170 tonnes of Hydrogen each year by converting tap water and electricity into hydrogen gas at a site just a few hundred metres from the Prospect Reservoir.

The Western Sydney Gas Project would neighbour the Prospect reservoir

The high-tech production facility would include a gas-fuelled generator and would also store 280kg of hydrogen gas within the facility.

There are also plans for the facility to provide a hydrogen bus refuelling station for the NSW Government bus network in the future.

A Jemena Gas planner said the project at 194-202 Chandos Rd, Horsley Park, was designed to produce 100 cubic metres of hydrogen per hour.

“Produced hydrogen gas will be injected into the existing natural gas distribution network,” the planner said.

A NSW Planning representative called for a series of specific issues to be addressed by the applicant including an assessment of the impact the proposal would have on air quality, the risks injecting hydrogen will have on existing pipes and safeguards to be implemented.

In its hazard management report, the applicant said the “most probable” incidents would be jet or flash fires, as well as explosions.

The project could also fuel NSW Government buses.

“Explosions can occur through a variety of mechanisms, but in each case damage or injury is

caused by a pressure wave which is created by rapid expansion of gases,” the planner said. “Explosions may also occur as a result of catastrophic rupture of a pressurised vessel, ignition of dust clouds, thermal decompositions, runaway reactions and detonation of high explosives.

Jemena Gas Networks run facilities across the state.

“The scenarios with the highest potential consequence were those which have the potential for offsite consequence — being in this case flash fires or jet fires — with radiation effects at sufficient level to cause a fatality that extended beyond the Jemena boundary fence.”

However, a Jemena Gas spokesman said the likelihood of an incident occurring was “once every 130,000 years”.