Australia set to Become a “Hydrogen” Export Superpower

Australia is known globally as a major gas exporter thanks to its massive onshore and offshore reserves of gas. The country also has huge coal resources which are being developed mainly for exports to Asian countries. However, this strength of Australia carries negatives reputational effects, given the growing concerns about climate change and global warming. With fossil fuels being a major contributor to global warming, extracting and exporting more fossil fuel is a major problem.

Fortunately for Australia, the country is also richly endowed with renewable energy resources. Thanks to its small population as compared to its large landmass, the country can build a huge number of large solar and wind plants. As per a recent report, 133 GW of renewable energy capacity pipeline is already in place. With the costs of solar and wind energy falling rapidly in recent times, it has become eminently plausible to meet growing energy needs as well as replacing existing coal plants with solar and wind plants. The intermittency problem of RE sources is also solved with large scale grid storage. Lithium battery storage has already made a small impact both for in front of the meter and behind the meter forms. With lithium battery costs falling by 80% since 2010 and expected to fall further, the problems of grid stability and balancing can easily be met with large battery storage plants in conjunction with solar and wind plants.

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Hydrogen is another major technology that is seeing a huge increase in interest as a way to manage the intermittency of renewable energy. Hydrogen can be used as a storage medium besides also being used as a direct source of heating. Hydrogen can use the infrastructure of gas to be transported not only within Australia but also exported to energy-hungry Asian countries. RE powered LNG plants can liquify hydrogen gas and transport them through LNG tankers to Asian countries such as Singapore which do not have enough RE resources. There is already a plan to build a 14 GW capacity solar plant in Northern Australia which will transmit its power to Singapore through undersea cables or hydrogen.

Note the hydrogen technology is still not matured like solar or wind but with an increasing R&D investment, it should become a natural fuel of choice for transport and heating very soon.  Australia which is isolated land wise cannot move power easily to other countries through transmission cables but hydrogen can solve its problem of becoming a major renewable energy exporter.

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