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Engineering and technology company Technip Energies (Technip) has been selected by Australian clean energy company Infinite Green Energy Ltd (IGE) to undertake a Front-End Engineering Design (FEED) for a green hydrogen production project in Northam, Western Australia.
IGE’s 10MW (megawatt) project, the MEG-HP1 Early Production Facility, will be powered by the Northam Solar Farm, which consists of 33,600 solar panels across an area spanning over 25 hectares (62 acres).
Connected to the South West Interconnected System (SWIS), the farm is located 100km east of Perth and will enable the production of up to 4.3 tonnes of green hydrogen per day.
“We are proud to have been selected as an execution partner by IGE for the MEG-HP1 Early Production Facility project,” enthused Gareth Philp, Australia Managing Director of Technip.
“We are committed to leveraging our local footprint and our integration and design expertise to contribute to building the future of green hydrogen in Australia.”
According to Technip, the offtake from the facility will be used mainly to fuel the heavy transport sector, targeting back-to-base logistics operators and local governments with in-depot refuelling.
Labelling the partnership as an ‘important milestone’ for IGE, Stephen Gauld, CEO and Founder of Green Infinite Energy, added that the facility at Northam is leading the transition to a Net Zero economy.
The site is expected to begin producing green hydrogen in 2024, making it one of the earliest producers in the state.
Announced in August 2022, IGE partnered with WA fuel distributor Refuel Australia to construct the Northam refuelling station.
An energy transition powerhouse
The region could become home to one of the largest renewables and green hydrogen hubs in the world.
The Asian Renewable Energy Hub (AREH), located in the Pilbara region of WA, aims to supply renewable power to local customers in the largest mining region in the world and also produce green hydrogen and green ammonia for the domestic Australian market and export to major international users.
With plans to develop onshore wind and solar power generation in multiple phases to a total capacity of up to 26GW, AREH is expected to be capable of producing around 1.6m tonnes of green hydrogen or nine million tonnes of green ammonia per year.
According to bp, which holds a 40.5% equity stake in the hub, at full capacity, the project is expected to abate around 17m tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) in domestic and export markets annually.
Commenting on the project, Anja-Isabel Dotzenrath, Executive Vice President of Gas & Low Carbon Energy at bp, said, “It truly reflects what integrated energy is – combining solar and onshore wind power with hydrogen production and using it to help transform sectors and regions.”
“It also reflects our belief that Australia has the potential to be a powerhouse in the global energy transition, benefitting from both its existing infrastructure and abundant renewable energy resources.”
Anthony Wright is the Global News Journalist for gasworld, having joined the company in May 2021.
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