Global oil major BP PLC said it had agreed to buy a 40.5% stake and become the operator of a renewable energy project in Australia that could become one of the world's largest producers of green hydrogen, but did not disclose the amount it paid.
The Asian Renewable Energy Centre (AREH) in outback Western Australia will develop up to 26 gigawatts (GW) of wind and solar power capacity to produce 1.6 million tonnes of green hydrogen (hydrogen produced from renewable energy) or 9 million tons of ammonia a year.
The project's co-founders, privately owned Intercontinental Energy and CWP Global, are counting on BP to launch AREH, but the project has been thwarted by Australian government concerns over damage to local wetlands.
Anja-Isabel Dotzenrath, executive vice president of natural gas and low-carbon energy at BP, said the project was in line with BP's push to switch from fossil fuels to cleaner energy and could advance its goal of grabbing a 10 percent share of the global hydrogen market.
"AREH will be one of the world's largest centres for renewable and green hydrogen energy and can make a significant contribution to the energy transition in Australia and the wider Asia Pacific region," Dotzenrath said in a statement.
BP said it was too early to talk about the overall cost of the project, but said the capital investment to achieve the full scale of the project "could be in the tens of billions of dollars". It aims to start generating electricity at AREH by 2029.
InterContinental Energy and CWP Global have been working on the project since 2014. They and their other partners, divisions of the Macquarie Group, remain stakeholders.
One of AREH's original partners, Vestas, the world's top wind turbine manufacturer with a 2% stake, has pulled out of the project.
The Australian government fast-tracked approval in 2020 for AREH's plan to use 15 gigawatts of clean electricity to split water to produce green hydrogen and ammonia for export, but the project was shelved a year ago due to environmental concerns over AREH. Plans to expand to 26 GW.
The government said the expansion would have "unacceptable impacts" on internationally recognised wetlands and migratory bird species, an issue that has yet to be resolved.
Alex Hewitt, co-founder of CWP Global, said in emailed comments.
No comments:
Post a Comment