The Australian government has awarded a AUD 15 million ($10.5m) grant to a pilot green hydrogen plant in Victoria, which will use the hydrogen to reduce emissions at a neighbouring steelmaking facility.
With funding from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA), clean tech company Hadean Energy’s AUD 30m project will trial a solid oxide electrolysis technology, Kallanish learns from a government statement. Developed by Australia’s national science agency, CSIRO, the technology is claimed to use around 30% less electricity than conventional electrolysers, helping bring down production costs.
The pilot is expected to produce up to 7 kg/hour of hydrogen, supplying around 85% of the hydrogen needed for the annealing process in steel manufacturing. The ARENA funding is anticipated to help Hadean progress its technology towards commercial readiness.
“This pilot will demonstrate how Hadean’s technology performs in a real-world industrial environment and provide the evidence needed to assess its commercial potential,” notes ARENA chief executive Darren Miller. “This could open the door to broader use of green hydrogen in steelmaking and other industrial applications, while helping build Australia’s hydrogen industrial capability.”
Although green hydrogen is expected to play a key role in reducing emissions from hard-to-abate industries such as green iron and steel, high production costs continue to hinder its wider industrial uptake. Hadean will trial the technology in an operating industrial environment, and if successful, it could improve the economics of hydrogen production and future deployment across industrial applications, ARENA says.
Climate change and energy minister Chris Bowen describes the pilot as an “exciting project that could help bring down costs for renewable hydrogen in metal processing and other sectors.” He adds: “Renewable hydrogen has an important role in cutting industrial emissions, particularly where using electricity directly is difficult. Bringing down the cost of producing it is critical.”
