German-Australian Hydrogen Alliance a major business opportunity for bilateral businesses

Hydrogen

Dr Michael Zettinig

The GermanAustralian Chamber has enormously ramped up its hydrogen activities over the last few months and will continue to do so in 2021 – including through the German-Australian Hydrogen Alliance.

We launched the GermanAustralian Hydrogen Alliance in late-2020 to establish an industryfocussed bilateral hydrogen initiative for the benefits of our member companies and other partners. Why did we do it? The background is the following:

After increasing in importance for a number of years, bilateral hydrogen activities got a massive boost in 2020 and will continue to become even stronger in 2021. There are several reasons the field of hydrogen is so highly dynamic, starting with the government / policy support: Australia released a national hydrogen strategy in late-2019, followed by Germany in June 2020 and the European Union in July 2020.

The German and European strategies are focussed on developing so-called “green hydrogen”, that is hydrogen produced from renewable energy sources. The Australian strategy is using the wider term of “clean hydrogen” that includes both green and blue hydrogen – hydrogen produced from natural gas where the emissions are captured using carbon capture and storage.

In addition to other energy-related activities such as energy-efficiency measures and the expansion of renewable energy production, green and clean hydrogen offer significant opportunities to decarbonise German industry, as well as creating a potential enormous

new export industry for Australia, either in the form of hydrogen or ammonia as this is easier to store and transport. Through hydrogen there is also the possibility to produce green steel. Of course, Australian exports would not necessarily go to Germany, but there are also large regional markets in countries including Japan, South Korea and Singapore.

On the bilateral level, there are three major initiatives that are working closely together to deepen bilateral hydrogen collaboration: Australia and Germany have established an Energy Working Group, including a Hydrogen Sub-Working Group. Last year both governments also announced a jointly funded two-year feasibility study into a renewable energy-based hydrogen supply chain between the two countries. The study is called HySupply and the study consortium is led by UNSW on the Australian side and BDI/acatech on the German side.

The German-Australian Chamber is closely collaborating with both initiatives and has been active on hydrogen activities over several years, including by organising hydrogen business delegations and through our involvement in the German-Australian energy partnership, funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy on the basis of a decision by the German Bundestag. Hydrogen-related industry delegations between Germany and Australia will also take place in 2021, albeit as virtual delegations this year.

Based on discussions with our many GermanAustralian businesses that are increasingly active in all parts of the hydrogen supply chain – and taking into account the tight timing for available German Government funding to support international hydrogen projects – we decided that the existing initiatives would be perfectly serviced by the GermanAustralian Hydrogen Alliance. The Alliance will collaborate with all key bilateral stakeholders, including the Australian Hydrogen Council and the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung Australia and the Pacific. We also had the great pleasure of organising a webinar with Australian Energy Minister Angus Taylor and the German Ambassador to Australia, H.E. Dr Thomas Fitschen, on bilateral hydrogen opportunities.

The Alliance will share information about bilateral hydrogen opportunities and you can find more information about the work program from February via its dedicated LinkedIn group. The group is open to companies small and big coming from every aspect of bilateral hydrogen projects, from project management, finance and insurance to storage, distribution, takeoff and electrolysers.

When appropriate, we will also share information about available funding opportunities through German or Australian government programs though the Alliance.

We cannot wait to work with German-Australian businesses to further deepen the bilateral hydrogen collaboration in 2021 and beyond. Please contact Max or Michael to find out more, and please connect via our dedicated LinkedIn group.