The Coalition has committed to partly fund the development of a South Australian green hydrogen hub, first pitched by the ousted state Liberal government.
On Friday, prime minister Scott Morrison announced that the Coalition would provide $218 million towards energy and manufacturing projects in South Australia.
Intriguingly, the funding commitment includes $70 million in funding to support the development of multi-user facilities at Port Bonython, just north of the industrial hub of Whyalla, mirroring a proposal taken by the defeated Liberal Party to the South Australian state election.
South Australia elected a Labor state government in March, ousting the previous Liberal government after just one term.
The newly elected Labor state government, led by premier Peter Malinauskas, has committed to the development of a government funded $592 million hydrogen fuelled power station facility in Whyalla.
However, prime minister Scott Morrison announced on Friday that the federal Liberals would provide $70 million towards the Port Bonython Hydrogen Hub Activation project.
The Port Bonython hub is being pitched as a means of co-loating hydrogen producers, consumers and exporters into a single development. It has already attracted interest from major energy players, including Fortescue, Origin Energy and a consortium of Japanese firms.
Oil and gas giant Santos operates a gas export terminal at Port Bonython, and has also secured Coalition funding to link the terminal to planned fossil hydrogen facilities at Moomba.
The federal backing of the project, initially conceived by the previous Liberal state government, does not seem to have phased the new state government.
South Australian energy minister Tom Koutsantonis described the federal backing of the hydrogen facility as a “complete repudiation of the SA Liberals attack on Green Hydrogen development.”
The development of the hydrogen facilities had become a hotly fought issue during the state election campaign, with former premier Steven Marshall calling Labor’s plans a “thought bubble”.
In addition to the funding for the hydrogen hub, federal energy minister Angus Taylor said that the Coalition would provide a low interest loan of $110 million to support the development of a 20MW concentrating solar thermal power station in Port Augusta.
That project being pursued by Vast Solar, and comes after several failed proposals for a solar thermal plant in Port Augusta, since the decommissioning of the last brown coal power stations in the region.
As has been a trend with the Coalition’s hydrogen announcements, the latest commitment has been paired with an additional $15 million in funding to subsidise the development of Santos’ Moomba carbon capture and storage project.
It takes the Coalition’s funding promises for carbon capture and storage projects during the election to beyond $300 million.
An additional $3 million will be provided to Santos to fund a hydrogen production facility at Moomba. Taylor made clear that the Moomba project would be a fossil hydrogen facility, drawing upon the site’s supplies of fossil gas.
“Port Bonython is a perfect location for a hydrogen hub in South Australia, with the ability to produce hydrogen from both gas with carbon capture in Moomba, as well as from its vast renewable resources,” Taylor said.
It follows a commitment for $82 million in funding for hydrogen facilities in the Hunter region, split between the Port of Newcastle’s Hydrogen Hub being developed by Macquarie’s Green Infrastructure Group, and Origin Energy’s Hunter Valley Hydrogen Hub.
On Friday, Morrison announced that a further $70 million would be provided towards an additional hydrogen hub at Tasmania’s Bell Bay – making it the seventh hydrogen hub supported by the Coalition, but the first directly described as a “green” hydrogen facility.
