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Hysata submits response to the Standing Committee

Wollongong, Australia, 2 August 2024: Australia has a once-in-a-generation opportunity to establish a new, high-tech, skill intensive industry based on an Australian invention. Federal and state governments should now take the right steps to establish a domestic electrolyser manufacturing industry.

Hysata, the Illawarra-based inventor of the world’s most efficient hydrogen electrolyser, has submitted a response to the Senate Standing Committee on Economics on the Future Made in Australia 2024 Bill.

The submission supports the bill and outlines the value of Hysata’s technology for a domestic clean hydrogen and clean energy manufacturing industry, and the policies needed to capture a significant share of the economic and social value afforded by these industries.

In simple terms, the Australian Government is planning for at least 800 and up to 4,600 electrolyser units to be operational in Australia over the next 10 years.[1]

Based on the concentration of the electrolyser supply chain today, Australia will procure nearly all these electrolysers from overseas and miss out on developing a multi-billion-dollar industry.

Hysata’s response highlights the following points:

  • To realise the social and economic benefits of renewable hydrogen, green metals, low-carbon liquid fuels, and clean energy manufacturing, Australia will need a mix of urgent public policy and private capital support to commercialise Australia’s expertise and strengthen local supply chains.
  • To deliver enduring social and economic value from the energy transition, the bill needs to enable the commercialisation of Australian technology.
  • To establish Australia as home to the world’s best technology, the bill needs to respond to the trend of domestic content incentives in the US, Europe, and Asia by including a bonus for the use of locally built or designed content in Australian clean energy projects.

Hysata’s key recommendations to the Committee are to:

  1. Include cornerstone technologies like hydrogen electrolysers within the “clean energy manufacturing” priority sector of the “economic resilience and security stream” under the National Interest Framework. The Future Made in Australia Bill Explanatory Memorandum makes specific mention of solar and battery manufacturing but does not reference the value of domestic electrolyser manufacturing.
  2. Provide direct domestic manufacturing support for electrolysers, initially through grants to help emerging technologies become commercial and bankable, and later through highly concessional finance mechanisms to support rapid scale-up.
  3. Incentivise proportional use of domestically developed or manufactured goods in Australian clean energy and manufacturing projects that benefit from government policies, notably production tax incentives for hydrogen, green metals, and low carbon liquid fuels.

 

Hysata’s full submission to the Committee is attached, or available on the Parliament of Australia website.

[1] Assuming each electrolyser unit is 5 MW

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