Hydrogen Renewables Australia (HRA) has made progress on its 5000MW Murchison Renewable Hydrogen Project, by announcing a partnership with fund managers Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP).

The Murchison Project is a large scale, export-oriented green hydrogen project that is located on the 126,000 hectares Murchison House Station, near Kalbarri in the mid-west of Western Australia. The project will be powered by combined wind and solar power generation and utilise desalinated water.

The project aims to provide large scale hydrogen export to the Asian markets – notably Japan and Korea – and will be developed in stages:

A demonstration phase providing hydrogen for transport fuels;

An expansion to blend with natural gas in the nearby Dampier to Bunbury pipeline;

A large expansion to produce hydrogen for the Asian markets, notably Japan and Korea.

HRA’s executive chairman, Terry Kallis, stated: “Our partnership with CIP will enable the Murchison Renewable Hydrogen Project to proceed with its planned development to assess the feasibility of producing competitive hydrogen exports for the Asian markets.”

Michael Hannibal, partner at CIP, said: “CIP is pleased to be joining forces with Hydrogen Renewables Australia to develop the Murchison Renewable Project. A project that aims at exporting green hydrogen produced from solar PV and onshore wind to Asian energy importing countries. We believe Murchison represents the best-combined wind and solar resource in Australia and the project complements our existing activities in Australia.”

The export of renewable hydrogen from Western Australia to countries that are highly dependent on imported energy supplies and lack sufficient domestic renewable energy resources represents a significant economic opportunity for the State.