Hydrogen future getting closer

Western Australia’s first permanent hydrogen refuelling station for passenger vehicles has been announced.

It will be built on a site at Jandakot south of Perth’s CBD, where infrastructure supplier ATCO has established a ‘Clean Energy Innovation Hub’ with Fortescue Mineral Group.

The hub has been producing green hydrogen for over a year and will expand into refuelling.

Last month the WA government announced it was investing $1 million from its renewable hydrogen fund in the H2 refueller project.

The refuelling station will service ATCO and Fortescue’s fleet of Toyota Mirai fuel-cell electric vehicles (FCEVs), but it is also capable of refuelling other hydrogen passenger vehicles such as the Hyundai Nexo.

The modular refueller has been purchased by Haskel Hydrogen Systems, a division of Ingersoll-Rand. It is expected to be commissioned by mid-2021.

The announcement of the WA refuelling site follows on from confirmation the first of a number of hydrogen production facilities will be built at Bundaberg in Queensland by a joint-venture including the FCEV start-up H2X.

The facility, which will cost approximately $300 million, will provide green hydrogen for a wide range of industrial and vehicle uses.

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An agreement was signed by three Australian companies comprising Elvin Group Renewables, Denzo Pty Ltd and H2X, which will allow for the production of industrial amounts of hydrogen.

The first steps in the partnership will involve the development of an 80-megaWatt hydrogen electrolyser, a process which will be split into two stages of 40-megawatt instalments.

The group – going under the name Green Hydrogen Australia Group (GHAG) – hopes that upon completion, the Bundaberg facility will be able to produce 6000 tonnes of zero-emission hydrogen per year.

Currently Australia’s only FCEV refueller is owned by Hyundai at its Sydney HQ.