Hydrogen Park SA at Adelaide's Tonsley supplies 5% renewable hydrogen with gas to homes from 2021
The Hydrogen Park SA plant concept for the Tonsley Innovation District in Adelaide.
Image courtesy Australian Gas Networks
Hydrogen Park SA (HyP SA), a pioneering plant at Adelaide's Tonsley Innovation District, started blending 5% renewable hydrogen into its natural gas supply to 710 homes in the nearby southern suburb of Mitchell Park in an Australian first in 2021. Another 3,000 homes across Mitchell Park, Clovelly Park and Marion were added to the hydrogen-mix supply by 2023.
In 2022, the plant's owner Australian Gas Networks, part of the Australian Gas Infrastructure Group, announced it would expand the supply to thousands more homes. Australian Gas Infrastructure Group also had ambitions to deliver at least 10% renewable gas across its distribution networks by 2030, and Australian Gas networks had a target of 100% renewable gas conversion by 2040 or no later than 2050.
The $11.4 million Hydrogen Park SA, the largest renewable gas plant in Australia, received $4.9 million from the South Australian government’s renewable technology fund to be built and operated from 2019 – the first Australian demonstration project of its size.
The Tonsley plant had a 1.25MW electrolyser with a proton exchange membrane that used renewable electricity to split water into oxygen and hydrogen gas. The renewable hydrogen was then blended with natural gas and supplied to customers in Mitchell Park via the existing natural gas network. There was no additional cost to customers receiving the blended 5% per cent renewable gas.
The HyP SA plant also included tube trailer refilling infrastructure to supply renewable hydrogen to industry across South Australia via road transport with project partner BOC, a subsidiary of Linde plc.
HyP SA was capable of producing about 175 tonnes of hydrogen per annum, equal to the total gas use of around 1,500 South Australian homes, or tens of thousands of homes on a blended gas basis.
Hydrogen Park SA project was a first step towards decarbonising South Australia’s gas networks. Commercial hydrogen production could decarbonise Australia’s energy mix and access export markets.
Hydrogen could be used in the same way as natural gas, heating homes and businesses, generating electricity and as a transport fuel. But it didn't produce any carbon emissions – only water and energy. By converting renewable electricity into hydrogen, vast amounts of renewable energy could be stored for later use (when the sun wasn't shining or the wind not blowing) and still have the superior reliability and heating performance of natural gas.
The start of the Hydrogen Park SA plant construction in 2019 coincided with the release of a CSIRO report on the research steps Australia must take to realise a potential 7,600 jobs and $11 billion a year by 2050 from the burgeoning hydrogen industry.
