Enabling production and export of hydrogen commodities through multidisciplinary analysis of markets and supply chains, across techno-economic and socio-political dimensions.
Areas of focus:
Green hydrogen as a key player of addressing climate change problems is receiving a growing amount of attention from policy makers, investors and businesses. This study aims to provide an informed analysis about the prospect of green hydrogen in the North and West Africa market. The study adopts a multi-disciplinary and multi-stakeholder approach to examine the inter-related thematic dimensions that may shape the future of the green hydrogen market in the region and beyond, and implications for multinational firms in their international operations. The analytical technique developed from the study can be adapted/applied to the study of other regions.
To support the implementation of the national and state hydrogen strategies, Geoscience Australia, in collaboration with Monash University, developed an open-source economic model, the Hydrogen Economic Fairways Tool (HEFT), to assess the economic viability of potential hydrogen operations across Australia.
The online tool conducts detailed geospatial-financial analysis to assess the quality of energy resources required to produce low-emissions hydrogen, while considering rail and road transportation infrastructures, pipelines to export ports, and ready access to water, among other factors. The tool supports decision-making by policymakers and investors on the location of new infrastructure and development of hydrogen hubs in Australia.
This project is supported by Geoscience Australia .
HEFT is accessible here.
Dr Stuart Walsh, Dr Changlong Wang
2021 – Evaluating the economic fairways of hydrogen production in Australia
2021 – Mapping Australia's hydrogen future for large-scale production and delivery
This research activity aims to develop the framework of a life cycle analysis ( LCA) -based decision-making method, which will be used to underpin the future development of a decision support tool to enable high level decision making on the net-energy flows and environmental impacts of proposed and future energy projects that take advantage of new technologies.
While the framework is based on an LCA approach, it is not limited solely to consideration of environmental impacts, such as natural resource extractions and emission outflows. Rather, an important goal of the project is to evaluate net-energy flows using direct and indirect (embodied) energy flows. The framework will enable an assessment of impacts and energetics of a prospective hydrogen supply chain, and therefore enable a comparative assessment among competing supply options.
Prof Damon Honnery, Prof Andrew Hoadley, Dr Roger Dargaville, Dr Graham Palmer
2021 – How hydrogen can be harnessed to help in the decarbonisation effort
As the world transitions towards a carbon-neutral economy, Australia has an opportunity to leverage its extensive renewable resources for the production and export of green commodities, such as renewably produced hydrogen, ammonia and steel. Monash University is developing a technoeconomic tool to determine optimal shipping routes and assess the feasibility.
Dr Stuart Walsh, Dr Changlong Wang, Dr Gordan Leslie, Mr Israel Lutalo
As nation states are experiencing different driving forces and pressures to transition to systems of lower carbon growth, a variety of regulatory policies, strategies and initiatives have emerged, with varying degrees of economic and environmental success and impact. Hydrogen is considered to be a key enabler in the transition to a low carbon economy. This study aimed to examine developments in policy and regulatory initiatives at the international, national, and industry level, as well as strategy, policy, and practice at the industry and enterprise level to understand key lessons to accelerate the transition to a low carbon economy.
Prof Wray Buntine, Prof Fang Lee Cooke, A/Prof Gerry Nagtzaam, Dr Paul Zhou, Ms Jingtian Wang, Ms Alejandra Mendoza Alcantara, Ms Abby Wild, Ms Caitlin Doogan, Mr Nicholas Yang
2022 – Low-carbon economy and policy implications: a systematic review and bibliometric analysis