Millions of diesel turbines might change off throughout Australia if work websites, councils and remoted communities go for a brand new hydrogen “power bank”.
Governments could wish to export hydrogen to Asia over the following decade however a Brisbane-based startup says it has expertise able to go now for native use by farms, mines and eco-tourism operators or distant cell phone towers and water therapy vegetation.
“Where we’re focused is what I like to call small hydrogen,” Paul Sernia, boss of fresh vitality storage firm Endua, advised AAP.
The firm on Tuesday unveiled the distinctive transport container-sized system designed for distant areas, not metropolis suburbs.
“We’re really looking off-grid, situations where there is no electricity grid and where people need to be independent,” he mentioned.
Vast swathes of Australia have small populations on the finish of very lengthy distribution networks. Dependent on trucking in diesel and gasoline, communities could be susceptible when extreme climate occasions lower off provides.
Even with renewable vitality and battery storage put in, many use diesel turbines as a fallback vitality supply.
Aiming for a 100 per cent renewable Australia, Endua desires to present individuals confidence vitality will at all times be there, Mr Sernia mentioned.
Backed by service station big Ampol and new traders, Endua plans to focus on the off-grid diesel generator market that accounts for $1.5 billion of diesel and 200,000 tonnes of carbon emissions every year.
“In the box, we have an electrolyser at one end and a fuel cell at the other, and storage in the middle that’s connected to that,” Mr Sernia defined.
Using expertise developed at CSIRO, the electrolyser takes renewable vitality and splits water into hydrogen and oxygen.
As these chemical processes occur, the hydrogen sits inside the self-contained system and acts like a battery.
The hydrogen is saved as a gasoline, as a type of vitality storage, and when vitality is required the hydrogen is run again by means of a gasoline cell and become electrical energy.
“It’s like a diesel generator that refuels itself … it just tops up the tank,” Mr Sernia mentioned.
And if it must be scaled up for larger vitality wants, there is no such thing as a have to duplicate the field. Instead, the positioning can merely add extra storage.
He mentioned the hydrogen “power bank” can supply days of help whereas present typical lithium batteries can present a few hours.
To commercialise the expertise, Endua final month raised $11.8 million from the Queensland Investment Corporation and enterprise capital corporations Melt Ventures, 77 Partners and Main Sequence.
“You think of the millions of diesel generators in regional areas and you can see the demand for power at this sort of local scale,” Mr Sernia added.
Source: www.perthnow.com.au
