Australia's Northern Territory fast tracks US$ 10bn green hydrogen facilit

• The US$ 10.75 billion Desert Bloom Hydrogen project in Australia's Northern Territory has been given Major Project Status by the regional federal government, fast tracking the project and paving the way for industrial manufacturing of the 10GW green hydrogen facility by 2023.

Desert Bloom, which is being created by innovation firm Aqua Aerem, will start running in 2022 as well as will produce green hydrogen at less than US$ 2/kg by 2027, exporting approximately 410,000 metric tonnes of hydrogen when at full operation.

"Within 2 years, Desert Bloom will supply hydrogen for power generation in the Northern Territory, and within five years, it will create green hydrogen for export at less than US$ 2/kg," said Aqua Aerem founder as well as chief executive officer Gerard Reiter.

The project will certainly use solar energy to power its electrolysis process, which utilizes a "world-first" air-to-water modern technology that will remove water from the air instead of being dependent of fresh water supplies, suggesting it can be constructed in the arid Australian outback.

"Our air-to-water innovation, which addresses this formerly intractable water supply problem, is a globe first; developed as well as created right here in Australia," said Reiter.

At first located at Tennant Creek, near existing gas as well as pipeline infrastructure that can be repurposed for hydrogen, Desert Bloom will certainly include modular hydrogen manufacturing units, each with an electrolyser ability of 2MW. Aqua Aerem intends to release approximately 4,000 of these modular units at the Desert Bloom project.

Aqua Aerem is backed by Singapore-based Sanguine Impact Investment, which is offering the resources for the project and also has performed a contract with one of Japan's largest gas purchasers as well as suppliers to buy the project.

An agreement with Territory Generation-- the Northern Territory's power utility-- has actually been authorized with the objective to offtake hydrogen from the first stages of the project.

The news comes amidst a flurry of activity on green hydrogen in Australia. In November Australian energy company Global Energy Venture (GEV) announced plans to develop a 2.8 GW green hydrogen project on the Australian Tiwi Islands, while in July an international consortium proposed a sustainable 50GW energy hub for the manufacturing of green hydrogen in Western Australia.

As well as in May, the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) selected 3 commercial-scale green hydrogen projects that will certainly share in AU$ 103 million (US$ 79.7 million) of moneying to support their growth.