Denmark based renewable energy developer European Energy A/S has become the majority stakeholder in Australian company Austrom that's working on a 3.6 GW Pacific Solar Hydrogen Project In the country's Queensland state, accelerating the project towards its realization.
For European Energy, this is one of its biggest projects that has a completion date of 2026, which it thinks is feasible and realistic with the State Government of Queensland lending its support.
The Danish company will take up the development work along with managing the grid connection process that's expected to generate over 100,000 tons of green hydrogen annually, once it comes up on 6,000 hectares land. European Energy did not reveal how much it paid for the new shares.
Austrom Hydrogen proposed the 3.6 GW project in June 2020 after having secured land near Gladstone Port for the solar and storage facility in Callide. Back then it said the project had potential to generate 200,000 tons of green hydrogen annually that can be shipped to Japan, South Korea among other countries (see 3.6 GW Solar & Storage For Hydrogen In Australia).
Regulatory approvals are expected by Q4/2023 post which construction can begin by Q2/2024.
European Energy and Austrom will be facing stiff competition from other counterparts that are also moving ahead with multi-GW level green hydrogen projects in Queensland. In September 2022 Ark Energy along with 3 Korean companies formed a consortium for a 3 GW green energy hub in the Australian state to supply over 1 million ton green ammonia annually to Korea (see MoU For 3 GW Green Hydrogen Project In Australia).
A month back in November 2022, Fortescue Future Industries and Windlab joined hands to site 10 GW wind and solar energy powered green hydrogen project in Queensland (see Queensland Announces 10 GW Renewables Super Hub).