ARENA recently announced conditional approval of $103.3 million towards three commercial-scale renewable hydrogen projects, as part of its Renewable Hydrogen Deployment Funding Round.

The three successful projects are:

• Engie Renewables Australia (Engie): ARENA will provide up to $42.5 million towards a 10 MW electrolyser project to produce renewable hydrogen in a consortium with Yara Pilbara Fertilisers at the existing ammonia facility in Karratha, WA 
• ATCO Australia (ATCO): ARENA will provide up to $28.7 million towards a 10 MW electrolyser for gas blending at ATCO’s Clean Energy Innovation Park in Warradarge, WA 
• Australian Gas Networks (AGIG): ARENA will provide up to $32.1 million in funding for a 10 MW electrolyser for gas blending at AGIG’s Murray Valley Hydrogen Park in Wodonga, VIC.

At 10 MW, the electrolysers in these hydrogen plants will be among the largest built in the world. The projects will also play a role in supporting commercial-scale deployments of renewable hydrogen in Australia and help progress Australia’s pathway to achieving the Australian Government’s goal of ‘H2 under $2’.

Image: Yara Ammonia Plant.

Read details about the funding round  

16 of Australia’s leading research teams are developing the building blocks of a renewable energy export supply chain based on hydrogen – from production, to energy carriers and end use.

The teams recently joined an online roundtable session to share their mid-term progress, achievements, challenges and plans. They discussed impressive results including world-records for solar to hydrogen efficiency rates, a number of patent applications and commercial spin-offs.

Image: The potential role of ARENA's Research and Development projects in the Hydrogen Export Supply Chain.

Read a summary of the projects' mid-term reports 

Read individual mid-term reports 

Stanwell Corporation have published a detailed study that assesses the commercial, technical and strategic feasibility of producing green hydrogen near Rockhampton in Queensland.

The concept involves installing a 10 MW electrolyser at the company’s existing power station site and producing around 1,600 tonnes of green hydrogen per year. This would be supplied to producers of ammonia and other gasses in the region.

Image: Hydrogen plant.

Read Stanwell's report 

ARENA is hosting a webinar on Advanced Inverters on Thursday, May 27, 2021 from 9:30 AM - 12:00 PM. 

The retirement of synchronous generation coupled with installations of inverter based generation sources is leading to system security issues. In particular, decreasing physical inertia and the reduction of system strength in certain areas of the electricity grid.

ARENA is funding a number of projects to explore options to address these issues, particularly on the study and installation of Advanced Inverters.

Join us at the panel and discussion, which will include presentations on:

• AEMO's upcoming White Paper on Advanced Inverters
• AEMC's Draft Rule Change on System Strength
• Powerlink's Grid Forming Inverter Report
• Neoen’s Hornsdale Power Reserve Upgrade
• Monash University's Weak Grids Study
• Transgrid’s Wallgrove Big Battery

This is a forum to both pose and answer questions around the use of Advanced Inverters to address system security to move these important issues forward.

Please register by May 25, 2021 on Eventbrite.

If you have any questions, please contact knowledge@arena.gov.au.

Clean Energy Startups

• The Final Report for EnergyLab’s Clean Energy Startup Support Program is now published on ARENA’s Knowledge Bank, along with a number of Lessons Learnt Reports. Read EnergyLab's reports

Battery Storage

• The final report of ElectraNet's ESCRI-SA Battery Project has recently been published, along with three operational reports, which analyse the system’s performance and operational experiences. Read ElectraNet's reports
• IT Power's Lithium Ion Battery Testing Project is performance testing conventional and emerging battery technologies. The aim is to independently verify battery performance (capacity fade and roundtrip efficiency) against manufacturers’ claims. The latest report describes testing results and general observations or issues encountered for each battery pack. Read IT Power's report

Wind Energy

• Meridian Energy’s Wind Forecasting Demonstration Project is trialling and analysing alternative approaches to short term forecasting of wind farm energy production. Read Meridian Energy's report

Solar PV R&D

• The Alice Springs Future Grid is a collaborative project consisting of interdependent sub projects. Read the project overview

Hybrid Technologies

• Advanced Energy Resources share lessons learnt from designing and constructing a renewable energy system that could connect to a weak grid, facilitate high penetration of customer-side renewable generation and export surplus electricity to the Western Power network. Read Advanced Energy Resources' report

DER

• Zeppelin Bend's Evolve DER project has released two new reports. One report covers the development and promotion of standards in relation to the communication of registration, monitoring and envelope information between DER assets, aggregators and DNSPs. The other report relates to the development of software systems that can be used to progress the development of new decision support and operational technologies to manage DER assets. Read Zeppelin Bend's reports
• GreenSync's has outlined training activities undertaken during – specifically in South Australia – with installers, retailers and technology vendors to support digital device registration and enrolment into deX. The progress of the deX platform’s development in terms of the software application suite, product / feature development, ability to scale the platform and partnerships underway within the remit of the project or alongside can be read about. Read GreenSync's reports

Hydrogen 

• APA's Renewable Methane Demonstration Project aims to demonstrate an innovative self-contained system to generate methane using renewable energy and water that is extracted from the surrounding air. Read APA's report

Bioenergy and energy-from-waste

• Logan City Council have produced a report on on the characteristics and market for  biochar being produced by the Logan City Biosolids Gasification Plant. Read Logan City Council's report