Site works begin at country’s first remote green hydrogen microgrid project

Work began on Friday at a project at Denham, 830 kilometres north of Perth, which will be Australia’s first green hydrogen plant powering a community microgrid.

The first sod was turned at the Horizon Power Project, which has been supported by $2.6 million from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency and $5.7 million from the Western Australian government.

“The demonstration project in Denham is leading the rollout of hydrogen plants in community-based remote microgrids and has the potential to be implemented across the State to benefit a wide range of small towns and communities,” said the state’s hydrogen industry minister Alannah MacTiernan.

The site will produce enough renewably-produced hydrogen to power 100 homes as an alternative to diesel fuel generation.

Horizon Power will install: 

• a 704-kilowatt (kW) solar farm; 
• 348kW hydrogen electrolyser; and 
• a 100kW fuel cell, “enabling excess renewable energy to be used to produce renewable hydrogen which will be stored on site and used to power homes as required.”

The project was announced in November 2020.

Construction of the plant is scheduled for August and it is planned to be operational “by early 2022.”

Picture: Horizon Power

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