Tassie closer to hydrogen industry
Tasmania’s dreams of building a hydrogen industry will take another step forward on Thursday.
Tasmania’s dreams of building a hydrogen industry will take another step forward on Thursday, with Tas Gas about to sign a deal with Woodside that could see hydrogen injected into the state’s gas supplies.
It is understood the two companies will announce a heads of agreement today that could see up to 10 per cent of Tas Gas’s 3.6 petajoule of annual supply be replaced with hydrogen, if Woodside elects to build a commercial production plant.
The Australian oil and gas major announced plans to build a pilot production plant at Bells Bay in Tasmania in August, taking over operation of the H2TAS project from Countrywide Renewable Energy.
The pilot plant will produce only 4.5 tonnes of hydrogen a day, but it is understood Tas Gas is keen to work with Woodside to supplement the natural gas its supplies in the state with hydrogen on a far larger scale.
Tas Gas is now run by former AGL executive Phaedra Deckart, and is better placed to feed hydrogen into its network than mainland gas retailers as its 837km worth of pipelines were installed only 20 years ago and are plastic, making them capable of transporting a gas mix with up to 10 per cent hydrogen.
Woodside is one of a group of companies vying to establish hydrogen facilities in Tasmania, using the state’s abundant water and hydro power to establish hydrogen production for local and export markets.
Energy major Origin and would-be new green power player Fortescue Metals Group have also put forward plans for hydrogen-powered ammonia plants in Tasmania, under the state’s Renewable Hydrogen Action Plan.
Origin is examining the feasibility of a 500-megawatt hydrogen plant capable of producing 420,000 tonnes of so-called “green ammonia” a year, and Fortescue said in November it was running the numbers on a 250-megawatt hydrogen facility in Tasmania’s Bell Bay industrial precinct to power a manufacturing plant capable of producing 250,000 tonnes of ammonia for domestic and industrial use.
Fortescue has said it could make a final decision on giving the project the go ahead this year, as part of founder Andrew Forrest’s bold ambition to turn the iron ore miner into one of the biggest green energy producers in the world.
Mr Forrest unveiled the plans at Fortescue’s annual shareholder meeting in November, telling shareholders the company was developing plans to eventually produce 235 gigawatts of renewable energy — or five times the current capacity of Australia’s National Energy Market — through its Fortescue Future Industries subsidiary.