Background

North Queensland is ideally placed to develop a hydrogen industry for both domestic and international use, having the best renewable energy resources to combine with other inputs to produce green hydrogen at scale, existing road, rail, port, and gas infrastructure that can be leveraged to support new hydrogen specific infrastructure, raw and recycled water supply and is geographically close to North Asian export markets providing a regional advantage. With more than 320 days of sunshine, several established renewable energy developments and regional partners that are progressing technology and capabilities in low and zero emission energy, a regional hydrogen consortium can bring together companies and institutions to build, collaborate and grow the hydrogen industry.

    • North Queensland Hydrogen Industry Working Group which has been collaborating since March 2019

    • $10.6 million commitment for a renewable energy training facility at Bohle TAFE in Townsville in November 2020

    • MOU signed in April 2021 between Origin Energy and Port of Townsville to develop export pathways for hydrogen export

    • Townsville City Council called for tenders for a hydrogen facility at the Mount St John Wastewater Treatment Plant April 2021

    • Hydrogen fuelled trucks order placed by Ark Energy for use by their sister company Townsville Logistics in July 2021

    • MOU signed in August 2021 between Ark Energy and Port of Townsville to develop export pathways for Hydrogen export

    • Townsville City Council has approved Edify Energy’s 1 GW green hydrogen production facility at the Lansdown Eco-Industrial Precinct in September 2021.  This is one of the first, if not the first, large scale green hydrogen production facilities to have planning approval in Queensland.

North Queensland has established businesses that have projects at either feasibility stage or development stage to further the hydrogen industry in the region. The cluster will bring together producers, with supply chain providers, regional SMEs, and offtake customers to activate the hydrogen ecosystem for the region of North Queensland. The larger proponents of the Consortium such as Ark Energy (subsidiary of Korea Zinc) and Origin in partnership with Japanese Kawasaki Industries have already secured major offtake agreements within the Korean and Japanese Market – something that sets our region apart from others.