The Shadow Minister for Energy Dr Steve Thomas says the results of a hydrogen storage trial at Denham conducted by Horizon Energy on behalf of the State Government would have to be considered a failure.
“The Government quietly announced the results earlier this month in a media release linked to a report on the Horizon Energy website” Dr Thomas said.
“And while the media release attributes this comment to the acting Energy Minister: “This report confirms the great opportunity for hydrogen to play a role in our State’s energy transition”, a simple reading of the Horizon report itself suggests otherwise.
“The trial project includes a 704-kilowatt solar farm, 348kW hydrogen electrolyser and a 100kW fuel cell located in Denham.
“The solar farm has so far delivered 420,991 kWh of electricity, of which 41,487 kWh has been delivered directly to the grid.
“The remaining 379,503 kWh has been converted into 1,422kg of hydrogen, which was then converted back into 16,044 kWh of electricity as it was returned to the grid.
“That might sound nice, but the reality of the numbers is that by converting it to hydrogen it took 379,503 kWh of electricity to put only 16,044 kWh back into the grid.
“That’s a return of 4% of the energy used to make the hydrogen being returned for power use.
“If Horizon Energy’s numbers on their website are accurate, this is a ridiculous outcome.
“Surely it would have far more efficient to simply build a battery to store the solar generated energy until it was needed.
“The Government’s infatuation with hydrogen energy has to be tempered by common sense and economic assessment.
“It would appear the greatest learning from the millions spent on this green hydrogen trial is to use other technology instead.”
