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A consortium of Japan’s top energy and infrastructure companies, together with the full support of the Victorian, Commonwealth and Japanese governments are working together to establish a commercial-scale hydrogen energy supply chain
The Hydrogen Energy Supply Chain (HESC) will include production, transportation and storage, with the goal of delivering liquefied hydrogen to Japan on a scale that meets their local demand.
The consortium partners include Kawasaki Heavy Industries, J-Power, Iwatani Corporation, Marubeni Corporation, Sumitomo Corporation, and AGL , Royal Dutch Shell (Shell) is also involved in the Japanese portion of the project.
Three key reasons Victoria is the best place for HESC.
- Victoria is one of the few places in the world that has abundant resource. The project will use brown coal from the Latrobe Valley.
- We have the technical knowhow and proximity to markets to produce it at scale.
- We will find cost effective ways to supply hydrogen to consumers in Japan.
As the world’s largest hydrogen production and export pilot, the HESC pilot project provides an important cornerstone for the development of a national industry.
Key elements of the pilot supply chain include:
- A newly constructed hydrogen production plant located at AGL’s Loy Yang site in the Latrobe Valley that will produce hydrogen gas using technologies adapted specifically for Victorian brown coal.
- Transportation of hydrogen gas to a liquefaction and loading terminal at the Port of Hastings.
- Liquefaction of hydrogen gas for shipping to Kobe in Japan by a marine carrier specifically developed for the task.
This new facility that we are building here at Western Port will be the foundation of a potential, new and exciting hydrogen export industry for Australia. Delivering clean hydrogen to the world for the benefit of our environment is a goal we share deeply and we look forward to achieving.
Shigeru Murayama - Global Chairman, Kawasaki Heavy Industries
The HESC Project will be developed in two phases:
- A pilot phase to demonstrate a fully integrated supply chain, including brown coal gasification and refining in the Latrobe Valley, inland transportation, liquefaction, liquefied hydrogen storage, the safe transportation of liquefied hydrogen from Australia to Japan via ship, and unloading in Japan, to be operational in 2020-2021; and
- a multi-billion dollar commercial-scale phase targeted for the 2030s, depending on Japanese hydrogen demand.
We are very pleased to announce that work has commenced on the gasification plant for the Hydrogen Energy Supply Chain pilot project, a pivotal world-first initiative aimed to safely produce and transport clean hydrogen from Victoria’s Latrobe Valley to Japan.
Masayoshi Kitamura - J-Power Chairman
