The Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) will partner with Japanese carmaker Toyota to fund $7.4m to transform part of the carmaker’s decommissioned car manufacturing site in the Melbourne suburb of Altona into a commercial-grade hydrogen production and refuelling site.
ARENA said in an announcement the new centre would demonstrate the processes required to produce hydrogen from renewable sources through electrolysis, and then the subsequent compression and storage.
ARENA said the centre, once operational, would produce at least 60kg of renewable hydrogen each day, with onsite solar PV and battery storage providing electricity to support the energy requirements of the project.
The president and chief executive of Toyota Australia, Matt Callachor, said the new centre on the Altona site would contribute to the carmaker meeting its target of zero carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from sites and vehicles by 2050.
“Hydrogen has the potential to play a pivotal role in the future because it can be used to store and transport energy from wind, solar and other renewable sources to power many things, including vehicles like the Toyota Mirai fuel cell electric vehicle,” Mr Callachor said.
“Right now, the biggest factor to the success of hydrogen being widely available is the lack of infrastructure,” he said.
“The sooner we move to a zero-emissions society, the better, and Toyota is committed to making this a reality.”
ARENA chief executive officer, Darren Miller, said the demonstration of low-cost hydrogen production and distribution on the Altona site “is key to the uptake of hydrogen-powered electric vehicles in areas such as truck, bus and government fleets”.
Mr Miller welcomed Toyota’s decision to invest in local hydrogen infrastructure.
“Australia holds a competitive advantage to play a global role in the emerging hydrogen export market due to our existing expertise and infrastructure,” the ARENA chief said.
Australia’s conservative Liberal-National government has opened public consultations on a national hydrogen strategy, after engaging Australia’s chief scientist, Dr Alan Finkel, to develop a roadmap with the cooperation of federal and state governments.
The government’s move follows a commitment from the opposition Labor Party in January to set aside $1 billion in funding from the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC) for clean hydrogen development.
Labor also said it would invest up to $90 million from ARENA for research, demonstration and pre-commercial deployment of hydrogen technologies.
Hydrogen is being promoted as a replacement for natural gas.
It is being used overseas in the transport sector and in electricity generation.
The Energy Minister, Angus Taylor, said Australia had the potential to be a “world leader in hydrogen” because of abundant energy resources and proximity to emerging export markets in north Asia.
Toyota’s electrolyser and hydrogen refuelling station is expected to be fully operational by late 2020.
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