Page 8 - AsiaElec Week 48

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Australia boosts hydrogen production
AUSTRALIA
AUSTRALIAN Gas Networks (AGN) has bro- ken ground at its pioneering Hydrogen Park SA (HyP SA) hydrogen production facility at Tons- ley in South Australia.
The facility will produce renewable hydro- gen from water that will be blended into local gas distribution networks, meaning that 5% of local gas supplies will be in the form of renewable hydrogen.
AGN, which is part of the Australian Gas Infrastructure Group (AGIG), expects the A$11.4mn ($7.8mn) facility to start producing renewable hydrogen in mid-2020. The experi- mental facility aims to develop technology that Australia can use to exploit its abundant solar power assets to help decarbonise the economy and reduce the country’s rising emissions.
“This is a significant milestone in South Aus- tralia and for hydrogen in Australia,” said AGN CEO Ben Wilson.
“We will be building a 1.25-MW electrolyser as the first Australian demonstration project of its scale and size, with small quantities of renew- able hydrogen produced and blended into the local gas distribution network next year,” he explained.
In November, the South Australian govern- ment approved AGN’s development application for the HyP SA facility, which has received an A$4.9mn grant from the Australian Govern- ment’s Renewable Technology Fund to build and
operate the project.
The technology involves a 1.25-MW proton
exchange membrane (PEM) electrolyser using renewable electricity to split water into oxygen and hydrogen gas atoms.
This renewable hydrogen will then be blended with natural gas and supplied to 710 customers in southern areas of Mitchell Park via the existing natural gas network.
“The decarbonisation challenge is huge and many solutions are needed for Australia to meet its emission reduction targets, and that includes gas stepping up to play its part,” Wilson said.
In the long term, AGN aims to deliver 100% renewable gas and to find new ways for using green hydrogen, including for industrial cus- tomers and transport.
AGN, which is owned by Hong Kong-listed CK Group, serves 1.3mn pipeline gas customers in Victoria, South Australia, Queensland, New South Wales and the Northern Territory. It also operates the 1,600-km Dampier Bunbury Pipe- line (DBP) in Western Australia.
Hydrogen’s importance as a green fuel was highlighted in June by the IEA and G20, which called for the gas to play a larger role in decar- bonisation, especially in industrial sectors where reducing emissions is proving to be difficult.
The IEA identified long-haul transport, chemicals and iron and steel production as being ideal candidates for using hydrogen.™
Canadian Solar sells Japanese solar plant
JAPAN
CANADIAN Solar has completed the sale of a 10.8-MWoperatingsolarpowerplantinIzu-shi, Shizuoka Prefecture in Japan to the Canadian Solar Infrastructure Fund (CSIF) for $42.1mn.
The Izu-shi solar power plant is powered by 30,202 Canadian Solar KuMax modules. It reached commercial operations in December 2018 and has been selling power to state-owned utility TEPCO under a 20-year feed-in-tariff (FiT) contract for $0.33 per kWh.
Shawn Qu, chairman and chief executive officer of Canadian Solar, said: “we are pleased to successfully complete another asset sale to CSIF. We are confident this transaction will enhance CSIF’s existing high-quality portfolio and provide accretive growth in their cash flow and energy production. The size of the listed infrastructure sector in Japan has more than doubled over the last two years, and along with that growth, CSIF has seen an increase in asset valuations.”
In Japan, Canadian Solar’s late-stage portfolio
of ready-to-build, under construction or opera- tionalprojectsstandsat217MW,withaweight- ed-average FiT of JPY36 ($0.33) per kWh.
Elsewhere in Japan, Canadian Solar’s reached commercial operation at its 53.4-MW Oita Hiji Machi solar power plant on October 31, 2019.
The plant boasts 160,308 Canadian Solar MaxPower modules and is expected to generate approximately 61,587 MWh per year.
It has a 20-year FiT contract in place with Kyushu Electric Power for JPY40 ($0.37) per kWh.
NASDAQ-listed Canadian Solar has deliv- ered 34 GW of solar modules in 150 countries since 2000, and currently has a 217-MW port- folio of ready-to-build, under construction or operational projects in Japan. Globally, it has 3.4 GW of late-stage projects that it is committed to selling in the future.
Japan expects to add 17 GW of PV to the national grid between 2018 and 2020, according to Fitch.™
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w w w . N E W S B A S E . c o m Week 48 04•December•2019