The world’s largest renewables project has been proposed in Western Australia (WA) and would produce as much as 3.5 million mt/y of green hydrogen or 20 million mt/y of green ammonia for export and domestic use. It would be built in phases in the Goldfields-Esperance region, taking advantage of high levels of wind and solar energy to produce 50 gigawatts of renewable energy across 15,000 square kilometers.
“With a production volume equal to today’s annual ammonia trade, the biggest challenge for this project will be finding buyers,” said Alexis Maxwell, Green Markets Director of Research. “Still, project financing and regulatory approval for this project remains uncertain. The world’s largest green hydrogen project, Australia’s Asian Renewable Energy Hub (AREH) was deemed ‘unacceptable’ last month by the Australian Environment Minister in a warning to the growing renewable industry.” (GM June 25, p. 33)
Partners in the new US$75 billion project include InterContinental Energy, CWP Global, and Aboriginal venture Mirning Green Energy Ltd.
InterContinental and CWP were also involved in the AREH project that was snubbed by the government last month. Hong Kong-based InterContinental is also seeking to develop a green hydrogen project in Oman, while CWP, which is active in both Australia and Eastern Europe, recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding for a $40 billion green hydrogen and derivative project in Mauritania.
While it is too early to tell, most of the hydrogen from the hub will likely be exported by ship, which will become quite costly compared with local output in even the most expensive hydrogen producers such as Japan and South Korea, according to Martin Tengler, BloombergNEF’s lead hydrogen analyst. “The question will be how much demand Japan and Korea will have by then and how much they can supply domestically,” he said.
“Green fuels produced at the site will meet massive future demand from multiple sectors, including in co-firing in power generation, the shipping sector, heavy industry such as steel, chemicals and mining, as well as the aviation sector,” the consortium said in a statement.
The $20 billion Sun Cable project that is set to build a 14-gigawatt solar farm as well as an energy storage facility of 33 gigawatt-hours in Australia’s Northern Territory is currently the world’s largest planned renewable project, according to data from BloombergNEF. That project is expected to reach financial close in October 2023.
“The Western Green Energy Hub is a truly massive proposal that would see WA home to one of the world’s largest renewable energy projects,” said WA Hydrogen Industry Minister Alannah MacTiernan. “Our state is perfectly positioned to lead the global renewable hydrogen industry, delivering a strong economic future for WA and becoming a major contributor to global decarbonization.”
The WA government has committed more than A$35 million towards developing a renewable hydrogen industry in the state.