Australia eyes hydrogen future to fuel Japan’s needs

Hydrogen has a lot of upsides as a carrier of energy:

• When created with a solar powered electrolyser it produces no emissions and releases only water vapor when used in a hydrogen fuel cell.
• It can be created with excess renewable energy that would otherwise be wasted, and transported like natural gas.
• It’s also is a versatile carrier of energy that can be used for a variety of applications.

ARENA CEO Ivor Frischknecht said there is an opportunity for Australia to export renewable energy export to the world:

"Australian resources have been exported around the world for decades, and renewable energy presents a new opportunity to capitalise on our natural riches. Today Australia exports approximately three quarters of the energy it produces, in the form of coal and gas. As demand for these resources cools over coming decades, we want our renewables industry to be ready to provide the energy to supply the world’s future needs.

 ARENA is supporting innovation across the hydrogen supply chain, aiming to make renewable hydrogen commercial and competitive, both here and around the world."

In the meantime, since the Fukishima meltdown in 2011, almost 95% of Japan’s energy has come from imported fossil fuels. They are the world’s largest importers of LNG and second-largest importer of coal, behind only China. However, this could change soon as Tokyo’s Governor is embracing hydrogen as a future energy source, working to establish a ‘hydrogen society’ ahead 2020 Olympics.

As such, two proposals are on the table for Australia to create and export the hydrogen required to meet Japanese demand ahead of the Tokyo Olympics. One project aims to take advantage of the Queensland’s rich solar resources to power an electrolyser and create renewable ‘green’ liquid hydrogen.

The Queensland Government expressed support for the Japanese plan less than three months after Kawasaki Heavy Industries announced that they will partner with the Victorian and Commonwealth Governments to gassify brown coal to make non-renewable hydrogen in Victoria’s Latrobe Valley.

Under the proposal, Northern Oil will develop renewable hydrogen at its Yarwun refinery, which is close to the Gladstone deep water port and receives more than 300 days of sunshine every year. Green hydrogen created will be shipped to Japan on specialised ocean tankers, which are already under development by Kawasaki Heavy Industries.

In addition, work is underway in Australia to explore the potential for hydrogen to replace natural gas in domestic applications.

With funding from ARENA, Western Australian gas supplier ATCO is building a display home to test how a cooktop, space heater and water boiler respond to different concentrations of hydrogen mixed with natural gas.

If trials are successful and the economics stack up, excess renewable energy could one day be stored as hydrogen in ATCO’s 14,000km network of gas pipelines.