One lonely hydrogen refuelling station will grow to three and possibly four as the ACT becomes a testing ground for building an urban network of future fuel dispensers.
Speculation as to whether Australia's first public hydrogen refuelling station would become a "white elephant" have effectively been quashed with the giant Pacific Energy acquiring the Fyshwick site and planning for expansion as one of the company's executives began scouting the ACT this week for a large-scale fuel production hub.
Owned by QIC, one of the one of the largest institutional investment management companies in the country, Pacific Energy purchased the low-volume refuelling depot from ActewAGL and will increase its refuelling capacity by as much as 300 per cent.
This purchase has been finalised four months after Pacific Energy signed a corporate memorandum of understanding with fuel giant Ampol, and car goliaths Hyundai and Toyota on growing hydrogen infrastructure and vehicle fleets.
ActewAGL originally set up the hydrogen station in March 2021 as part of the quid-pro-quo deal with French renewable energy supplier to the ACT, Neoen, with Hyundai providing 19 cars on lease to the ACT government.
It was effectively a co-sponsored market test and with most of the Hyundai fuel cell electric vehicle leases falling due this year, the third year of the project was always going to be a the "crunch" time on whether it would quietly fade away, or be reinvigorated.
But despite a lull while the public's attention turned to EVs and Canberra became the biggest per capita market for electric cars in the country, interest in green hydrogen - particularly as a medium and heavy transport alternative fuel - is now regathering momentum.
"Pacific Energy is a long-term investor with a five- to 15-year horizon," said Sean Blythe, the managing director of PE subsidiary NGV.
"We are very much focused on growing the hydrogen network because the ACT has the near-perfect population size and the government policies to support it.
"Vehicle programs, such as the [Hyundai] Nexo program, are very useful in educating and demonstrating to the public about hydrogen. We see the next step as being in the medium-size commercial transport sector."
There is a plan to produce as much as 1000kg of hydrogen a day at a specific production hub in the ACT. The location of this hub is still undecided but it will need to have premium and easy transport access, as well as a locale where PE potentially can access a "behind the meter" renewable power supply, given that producing hydrogen is a hugely electricity intensive process.
While the full details of the four-company cooperative arrangement are still to be thrashed out, Pacific Energy and Ampol will be positioned as the hydrogen producers/retailers while Hyundai and Toyota will provide the vehicles.
Ampol has 24 retail sites in the ACT, and Mr Blythe said two - one in the north and another in the south, with Fyshwick as the central dispensing station - could be well-suited to hydrogen refuelling.
His company ENGV set up the Fyshwick operation while NEL provided the hydrolysers, while PDC Machines and IVYS Energy Solutions provided the refuelling rigs.
Pacific Energy chief executive Jamie Cullen said buying the Canberra site "perfectly aligns with our goal to be a leading provider of the infrastructure the sector is seeking to scale".
