CSIRO spinout lands $15 million to make green hydrogen using less power

Detailed summary

ARENA CEO Darren Miller said green hydrogen has significant potential to reduce emissions from industries that are difficult to electrify.

CSIRO spinout Hadean Energy has secured a $15 million grant from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) to test whether waste heat from heavy industry can cut the cost of making green hydrogen.

ARENA will fund half the $30 million pilot plant proposed for industrial gas supplier BOC’s Western Port site in Victoria. The plant will produce up to 7kg of hydrogen hourly for a neighbouring steelworks. That’s about 85% of the hydrogen needed for annealing, a heat treatment to prevent the steel’s surface from oxidising.

CSIRO and corporate adviser RFC Ambrian launched Hadean in 2023, with the latter’s fund dropping $1.5 million into its seed round that year.

Based at CSIRO’s Clayton research precinct in Melbourne, Hadean is commercialising a tubular solid oxide electrolyser researchers spent eight years developing. Its ceramic tubes use electricity and heat to split steam into hydrogen and oxygen. Hadean estimates that tapping the heat a factory already generates can reduce electricity use by around 30% compared to conventional electrolysers.

In 2024, a prototype ran for 1,000 hours at BlueScope’s Port Kembla steelworks in NSW. It used less than 36 kilowatt-hours of electricity per kilogram of hydrogen by using steam from the plant. The Victorian pilot will scale the system from about one kilowatt to 200-300kW.

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ARENA CEO Darren Miller said green hydrogen has significant potential to reduce emissions from industries that are difficult to electrify.

“This pilot will demonstrate how Hadean’s technology performs in a real-world industrial environment and provide the evidence needed to assess its commercial potential,” he said.

“This could open the door to broader use of green hydrogen in steelmaking and other industrial applications, while helping build Australia’s hydrogen industrial capability.”

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