​Image credit: Jemena

​​INVESTMENT PRIORITY: Other

LEAD ORGANISATION: Jemena

ARENA FUNDING: $7.5 million

TOTAL PROJECT COST: $11.42 million

LOCATION: Sydney, NSW

​​​Australia’s biggest Power-to-Gas (P2G) facility is being constructed in western Sydney for a project that will examine how green hydrogen can be both stored in the gas distribution network and used as a clean fuel for hydrogen fuel cell vehicles.

The P2G facility features a 500 kilowatt (kW) electrolyser that will convert excess solar and wind power into hydrogen. The majority of the hydrogen produced will be injected into the gas network, providing enough energy to meet the cooking, heating and hot-water requirements of

approximately 250 homes. A portion of the hydrogen will be used in a gas engine generator to produce electricity that will be exported to the grid, with the remainder stored for use in an onsite Hydrogen Refuelling Station (HRS) for hydrogen fuel cell vehicles.

The five-year trial by Jemena will inject the green hydrogen into the company’s large gas distribution network to demonstrate how existing gas pipeline infrastructure can be repurposed to store excess renewable energy.

It will also focus on addressing the technical, regulatory, environmental and economic barriers to the production and use of hydrogen in gas distribution and transmission networks.

​​HOW THIS PROJECT MAKES A DIFFERENCE

The project will help to support the decarbonisation of Australia’s energy market by demonstrating a long-term storage solution for variable renewable energy within gas distribution networks and as a clean fuel for hydrogen vehicles. The successful demonstration of hydrogen storage in existing gas infrastructure is likely to support further investments in renewable energy.