Western Australia’s Oakajee Strategic Industrial Area (Oakajee SIA) has invited expressions of interest (EoI) from corporations and businesses worldwide to produce renewable hydrogen.

The Oakajee SIA is a designated, greenfield strategic industrial area, located 435 km north of Western Australia’s capital city of Perth.

The notice focuses on the domestic production and use of renewable hydrogen, including for industrial processes and products derived from renewable hydrogen.

Industrial proponents looking to produce commercial quantities of hydrogen, established and prospective hydrogen off-takers, infrastructure providers, commercial entities, and hydrogen industry technology providers can participate in this tender.

The last date for the submission of bids is December 24, 2020.

Western Australia is one of the world’s largest and most efficient mining and downstream processing regions. Western Australia exported nearly 44.1 million tons of liquefied natural gas (LNG) in 2019, and it also accounted for 52% of the global lithium production in 2019. It is also the largest iron ore supplier globally, accounting for 37% of the worldwide supply in 2019. The Western Australian government plans to invest $22 million (~₹1.6 billion) to develop a renewable hydrogen industry in the region.

The current tender is a part of the government’s strategy to develop the area through its renewable hydrogen strategy. The Oakajee SIA’s renewable hydrogen potential is based on its diurnally complementary wind and solar potential, which contributes to the overall renewable energy production capacity of the region. The Oakajee SIA says it has the potential to provide nearly 270 MW of wind power and 1.25 GW of solar power.

Recently, the Australian Renewable Energy Agency received a funding package worth $1.62 billion (~₹118.9 billion) from the government to enhance the utilization of low emission technologies to cut emissions across the chain. The new funding package also included a guaranteed baseline funding worth $1.43 billion (~₹105.02) over the next decade, which will help secure the agency’s future beyond 2022.

Earlier, a research team from Newcastle University in New South Wales, Australia, devised a system that uses solar power to conduct electrolysis on water harvested from air to create hydrogen, a low-cost zero-emission fuel. The new technology pioneered by Professor Behdad Moghtaderi and his team eliminates critical challenges in the production of hydrogen fuel.