The green hydrogen facility will eventually be powered by a 2.8GW solar farm.

Image: OCI Energy

Australian energy company Global Energy Venture (GEV) is to develop a 2.8GW green hydrogen project on the Australian Tiwi Islands, with a planned production capacity of upwards of 100,000 tonnes per year.

The Tiwi Hydrogen Project (THP) will start with the construction of a 500MW solar PV plant that will be eventually expanded to 2.8GW “as the regional hydrogen market grows” through a staged approach to construction.

“It will deliver a fully integrated green hydrogen production and export supply chain, commencing with a fleet of GEV’s 430t compressed hydrogen ships,” announced GEV in a company media release.  

GEV is planning to use the facility to supply green hydrogen to the Asia-Pacific region. It anticipates financial close of the first phase to be reach in 2023, with the first exports planned for 2026. GEV’s compressed ship loading solution will be used to store the hydrogen once produced.

The project aims to “demonstrate the simplicity and efficiency of using compression for a pipe-to-pipe green hydrogen supply chain,” said GEV managing director and CEO, Martin Carolan. “This project can transition GEV from a midstream service provider to an innovative hydrogen company.”

Located along the northernmost part of Australia, the Tiwi Islands were chosen because of their existing port infrastructure, geographical proximity to key export markets – Singapore, Indonesia, South Korea and Japan – and high solar potential.

GEV is to fast track the installation of solar monitoring station across the islands to “establish bankable solar generation data for the proposed project location,” it said.

Norwegian energy giant Statkraft recently published a report that underscored the important of green hydrogen to the energy transition, with many industries reliant on the fuel for their operations.

BySean Rai-Roche
November 1, 2021