PERTH (miningweekly.com) – The Queensland government is progressing with its strategy to become a green hydrogen exporter, signing a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Port of Rotterdam in The Netherlands to collaborate on opportunities to develop a hydrogen export supply chain.

“This landmark agreement is another ringing endorsement of Queensland’s quest to be a green hydrogen superpower,” Minister for Energy, Renewables and Hydrogen Mick de Brenni said.

“The Port of Rotterdam has a target to import up to 20-million tonnes of hydrogen by 2050, starting with imports of ammonia in 2025. This latest milestone demonstrates that Queensland has what it takes to help economies around the world achieve their decarbonisation ambitions.

“And given the recent impacts of world events on energy security and their sky-rocketing effect on power prices, this has perhaps never been more important.”

De Brenni told the World Hydrogen Summit that Queensland was not just a sound investment destination but also a very well-credentialed investment partner for hydrogen and renewable energy.

“Queensland has the clean, green, reliable, affordable and sensible energy solutions you seek. We are powering ahead in the new energy era – in fact we are setting the pace. We are tapping our abundance of sunshine, wind and water, our new economy minerals and our skilled workforce to power our energy evolution.”

De Brenni outlined the steps Queensland had taken to develop large-scale manufacturing that supported a resilient and sustainable renewable energy supply chain.

“Our A$2-billion Renewable Energy and Hydrogen Jobs Fund empowers Queensland’s interconnected and publicly owned energy corporations to partner with private sector projects and help satiate an increasingly hungry world hydrogen market,” he said.

“We also have three Queensland Renewable Energy Zones that allow us to coordinate our vast supply of renewable energy and open doors to rapidly develop our green hydrogen hubs. Importantly we are also skilling Queenslanders to ensure we maximise the opportunity to become a world leader in hydrogen.

“And we are committed to producing Queensland hydrogen to the highest possible environmental standards. We realise the importance of assuring our investment partners that our hydrogen will only be made from renewable energy. Because the only truly clean hydrogen is green hydrogen.”

The Minister said Queensland will continue setting global benchmarks for hydrogen as a new clean fuel that will power more jobs in more industries.

“In the coming months, Queensland will further demonstrate global energy leadership when our 10-year Energy Plan is released,” he said.

“This Energy Plan will reinforce the fact that Queensland offers the certainty to make long-term investment decisions, and that we are ‘fair dinkum’ about delivering regulatory certainty, infrastructure certainty and political certainty.”