A region on the west coast of South Australia's Eyre Peninsula's could become the nation's first hydrogen storage hub thanks to its kilometre-thick salt deposits.
EntX, a clean energy tech company based in Adelaide, has been granted approval to explore the possibility of storing hydrogen in Elliston for their Western Eyre Green Hydrogen Project.
South Australia is the only Australian jurisdiction with a licensing regime in place allowing exploration for natural hydrogen projects.
EntX's general manager of hydrogen and clean fuels, Glenn Toogood, said the company's licence allowed it to start early exploration work on the Polda Basin's salt deposits.
"[It also] allows us to commence early engagement with the local community stakeholder groups including the Native Title holder groups in that region," he said.
Man-made caverns in salt deposits — made by drilling and injecting freshwater into the deposit, according to EntX — are ideal for hydrogen storage, as the salt lining the space has very low permeability, creating an effective barrier to gas leakage.
Mr Toogood said Elliston was an important jewel in SA's crown when it came to green energy.
"There's great wind potential for wind generation and good solar potential," he said.
"Coupling those renewable energy potentials together with the storage of hydrogen, which has always been a challenge in the development of large hydrogen projects, we think we can develop one of the Eyre Peninsula and South Australia's biggest hydrogen projects."
Researchers believe the Polda Basin holds the key to storing hydrogen, made possible by its large salt deposits two kilometres underground — something discovered back in the late 1970s when it was drilled for oil and gas resources.
"These salt deposits can be up to a kilometre in thickness [and] within those large caverns is where the hydrogen will be stored," Mr Toogood said.
"These deposits are very old, around … 850 million years ago they were laid down in the Polda."
EntX will look at different novel exploratory ways to determine the location of the salt deposits, including geophysical techniques.
A $4 billion process
Mr Toogood said if salt deposits were found, he estimated the development of the hydrogen storage site would be a $4 billion project.
EntX's involvement in Elliston so far has been "very little", but the company hopes to change this.
"We have started initial engagement and have been up to the region a few times already talking with key local stakeholders," Mr Toogod said.
"We're currently looking at some old core [samples] around Colton, which was drilled in the late 80s and 90s."
Mr Toogood said before the town of Elliston could be utilised as a hydrogen storage site, the production of hydrogen itself needed to begin.
"We need to produce hydrogen using renewable wind or solar electricity," he said.
"We would split water into components of hydrogen and oxygen."
The hydrogen would be created using desalinated water from Waterloo Bay, with EntX looking to build its own desalination plant.
"Once we get that hydrogen produced, then we'd look to store that in the natural salt deposits, which underlie a large area of that Western Eyre Peninsula," Mr Toogood said.
"We use really fresh water and dissolve the salt out to develop [a] cavern formation.
"That cavern stays intact for as long we use it, and longer term — in 100 years' time once we stop using it — mother nature does its work and effectively pushes that cavern back together again."
Mr Toogood said the company was also considering "large project scale development, looking at a product like ammonia and other renewable energy such as methanol."
Hydrogen already stored in salt caverns in Europe
South Australian Energy Working Party member, Ross Kassebaum, who lives in Port Lincoln said he was pleased with the announcement.
"I was pleasantly surprised, because our group had looked at the extent of the Polda Basin and one quarter of it is on land and three quarters extends out to sea at approximately 400-kilometres long," he said.
"In Europe they store hydrogen in salt so it's quite feasible."
He said it could complement the current development application going through the SA government for a windmill farm in Elliston.
"There's a development application going through to the SA government, the owner of Ausker Energy Group has [done] a lot of research and costings on a wind farm, on desalination and costing on a hydrogen plant there."
