The Australian Renewable Energy Agency (Arena) has received 36 expressions of interest to develop green hydrogen projects totalling almost 500MW in response to a funding round launched in April.
Arena said the projects combined represent value of over A$3bn (€1.8bn), when accounting for private sector investment in the expressions of interest.
The agency received more than A$1bn in total grant requests, with projects ranging in size from 5MW to 80MW.
Interest came from every state and territory in the country and represented a wide range of demand or end use case applications, Arena said.
The agency opened the A$70m Renewable Hydrogen Deployment Funding Round in April with the aim of helping to fast track the development of the sector in Australia.
“The funding round is expected to play a significant role in supporting commercial-scale deployments of renewable hydrogen in Australia and commence the pathway to achieving the Australian Government’s goal of H2 under A$2,” Arena said.
The funding aims to support two or more large scale renewable hydrogen projects, with electrolysers of a minimum 5MW capacity but with a preference for 10MW or larger.
Projects selected in the funding round can also be considered for further financing from the Clean Energy Finance Corporation under its A$300m Advancing Hydrogen Fund.
Arena is now assessing the expressions of interest and has invited shortlisted projects to submit a full application, with the aim of awarding funding by the end of 2020.
Arena chief executive Darren Miller said: “We’re excited to see that there is such strong interest in renewable hydrogen from across a broad cross section of industry.
“This is an important step for the sector and it looks like we have many companies now ready to start building large scale renewable hydrogen projects across a range of industries and end uses.”
“The fact that we’ve received expressions of interest for projects totalling over A$3bn in cost and almost 500MW in size shows that we’re beginning to see companies embrace making hydrogen through renewable means.
“While we’re only at the early stages of renewable hydrogen production in Australia, much like our role in making large scale solar competitive, Arena aims to help bring down the cost of hydrogen, build Australia’s skills and capacity, create jobs and activity in regional areas and help Australia achieve our emissions reduction objectives.”
The agency has already committed over A$55m in funding for renewable hydrogen, including A$22.1m towards R&D projects, as well as feasibility studies into large scale projects and smaller scale demonstrations looking at renewable ammonia, power to gas and hydrogen mobility.
Miller added: “Preliminary feasibility outcomes indicate there is a significant commercial gap and it is expected that grant and concessional funding will be required for hydrogen production facilities in the short to medium term.”