SUPPORTING THE NORTH’S HYDROGEN POTENTIAL

Growth Opportunity

The Townsville Enterprise led North Queensland Hydrogen Consortium (NQH2) was welcomed into H2TCA, the Federal Government’s National Energy Resources Australia (NERA) network of hydrogen clusters in December 2021. Establishing Townsville as a declared Hydrogen Cluster.

In the October 2022 Federal Budget, NQH2 received $70M to progress the Townsville North Queensland hydrogen industry. Townsville Enterprise thanks the Federal Government for its commitment to this emerging industry and the energy transition.

Concessions and incentives are now required to capitalise on this enormous opportunity for the region, the State, and the country.

What We Need

$70 million Federal Budget allocation made available in the first four years (not over eight years) to be first moving globally.

Network concessions - provide new electrolysers in operation by 2030 with partial concessions (approximately 90%) to network use of system charges. These concessions will incentivise the use of existing spare capacity in our network infrastructure to support industry in these crucial early stages of development. This action will significantly reduce the cost of hydrogen and incentivise investment at scale to reduce costs even further. By limiting the concessions to parts of the network with existing capacity, this mechanism will support the hydrogen industry to grow, while minimising impacts on other consumers.

Australian production incentive equivalent to fuel tax credit on diesel.

Demand incentives – Transition public transport fleets owned/contracted or subsidised by Government.

Bankable long term government supply contracts.

Government contracts that can peel back as private domestic offtake increases.

Additional grant/momentum money directed at stimulating the demand which will enable the origination of supply projects, which themselves can be supported by grants.