Kallis Energy Investments of Kallis Family Trust in Australia has scrapped its previously announced 6 GW wind and solar power backed green hydrogen hub planned for South Australia citing 'water supply related issues'.
In a LinkedIn post, Founder, Investor and Executive Chairman at Kallis Energy, Terry Kallis said the 6 GW Moolawatana Renewable Hydrogen Project was discontinued as the environmental and permitting risks associated with water supply and desalination were unacceptable.
Green hydrogen is a process that produces hydrogen using water through electrolysis process and is powered by renewable energy. According to the National Hydrogen Strategy of the Australian government, it requires around 9 liters of water to produce 1 kg of hydrogen.
While Kallis' announcement was met with several suggestions from his contacts ranging from switching over to a different location to breaking up the 6 GW project into several small sub-projects, Kallis had a word of advice for industry colleagues, "Not all projects work and it is important that developers determine fatal flaws as early as possible in the project timeline and communicate this to stakeholders."
The project was originally announced in November 2021 with plans to generate low cost green hydrogen with 3 GW wind and 3 GW solar, to make green ammonia for export to Japan and Korea. Back then, the company had conducted a preliminary environmental assessment and wanted to conduct further studies into the availability of water (see 6 GW RE Project In Australia For Green Hydrogen).