Perth’s Resources Technology Showcase 2019: Collaboration will be key to hydrogen future

The time is right to “kick start” the hydrogen industry and start building prototypes, but good collaboration between governments, industry, business and customers is vital if Australia is to succeed.

A panel session at the Resources Technology Showcase addressed the role that Australia’s resources industry could play in the new energy world, and concurred good government leadership was key.

University of WA director of the Australian Centre for LNG Futures Professor Eric May said any new industry needed government leadership.

“The reason the private industry struggles is the risks are high and there is too much ambiguity, and that’s where governments can step in,” Professor May said.

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“The other aspect is infrastructure, and if we are trying to establish an export industry, again it comes down to risk and companies doing things they’ve never done before, that’s a big ask.

“To establish facilities where people can come in and test equipment to show that it works, prior to scaling up then that’s going to be particularly important.”

Professor May said it was also important for government to manage the non-technical aspects, namely social licence.

“Everyone is positive about hydrogen but it doesn’t take much to get a conflict. We need to keep educating about the benefits,” he said.

Woodside Energy vice-president technology Jason Crusan said it was time to start the prototype phase, which required collaboration between suppliers and customers, between business and industry and between business and business.

“In terms of technologies, we will probably get some things wrong in the beginning, evolve from that and understand how to take those learnings,” Mr Crusan said.

“We need to not overthink it too much from the beginning because there is a lot of risk in this space. through collaboration we can reduce that risk.”

BHP vice-president of innovation Grant Caffery said resources, as an industry, needed to decarbonise its value chain and operations.

“We see hydrogen as a natural fit in our operations, but can’t do that ourselves. We as an industry need to collaborate so we can work at scale to foster a hydrogen market.”

Fortescue Metals Group hydrogen general manager Michel Gantois said Australia had a head start in terms of technology and engineering, but collectively the industry could offer more in terms of expertise and innovation and originality in the way it approached the customer.

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Austrade senior investment specialist, resources and energy, David Grabau said government had a key role to play, as encapsulated by the release of the national hydrogen strategy last week.

He said Austrade saw itself as a facilitator and had been harnessing government-to-government relationships. It has been helping supporting market opportunities, particularly in Korea and Japan. He gave the examples of recently hosting a delegation from H2 Korea, and Austrade sponsoring a Hydrogen energy conference in Japan.

He said in coming weeks Australia’s chief scientist Alan Finkel will visit the two important hydrogen markets of Japan and Korea.

• Back to full coverage of all our panel session
• More news from the Resources Technology Showcase 2019
• Everything to see and do at the free RTS2019 exhibition