Pilot plant at Adelaide University Roseworthy campus tests way to producing hydrogen without renewables
A concept for the green hydrogen energy pilot plant at Adelaide University’s Roseworthy campus, to test producing hydrogen directly from water and sunlight, without relying on electrolysers or electricity grids. This was an alternative to the South Australia government‘s approach with its planned $600 million hydrogen hub at Whyalla.
Images courtesy Sparc Technologies
Australian billionaire Andrew “Twiggy" Forrest’s Fortescue Metals Group in 2025 committed to partner with South Australia’s Sparc Technologies to build a green hydrogen energy pilot plant at Adelaide University’s Roseworthy campus, north of Adelaide.
The first-of-its-kind plant would produce green hydrogen directly from water and sunlight, without relying on electrolysers or electricity grids. Fortescue was investing $1.48 million in Stage 2 of the project, giving it 36% of the joint venture with Sparc (36%) and the university (28%). Stage 2 would focus on building the pilot plant at Roseworthy and reactor testing, as well as laboratory testing of photocatalytic water splitting reactors.
Fortescue director of research and development Michael Dolan said the Australian innovative technology had the potential to make green hydrogen an even more competitive energy resource by decoupling it from the cost of green power by not relying on renewable electricity sources like solar or wind farms, nor “expensive electrolysers”, to produce hydrogen from water.
Sparc’s use of photocatalytic water splitting reactors to produce hydrogen was different from the South Australian government‘s approach with its $600 million hydrogen hub at Whyalla, planned to be operating by 2006. That hub would include the world’s largest electrolyser, using electricity to split hydrogen from oxygen in water. The government intended get its energies from renewables, with hydrogen then used to power turbines to put energy back into the electricity grid.
But Sparc Technologies managing director Nick O’Loughlin said its approach “addresses a fundamental issue in the nascent green hydrogen industry – the cost of renewable electricity”. It hoped to show “key potential advantages over electrolysis” with its pilot plant, including the low-cost potential of photocatalytic water splitting reactors, the emissions-free nature of the hydrogen output, and its comparative advantage in off-grid and remote locations.
Adelaide University deputy vice chancellor professor Anton Middelberg said the university was “pleased to commit to this next stage of work on photocatalytic water splitting” based on intellectual property developed by the acting director of the university’s centre for energy rechnology professor Greg Metha.
