Author: klovegrovecsp

ITP Thermal has joined https://abergeldie.com.au/ in establishing a new company in partnership to pursue large scale underground storage of hydrogen:

http://www.ardentunderground.com/

There is ever increasing recognition that hydrogen will play a central role in the essential transition to net zero GHG emissions. We see affordable high volume storage as a missing link in the hydrogen discussion. Our concept uses ‘’blind bore shaft drilling’’, a proven technique from the mining industry. The idea offers a modular approach to producing a lined rock cavern. Individual shafts will store 50t or more of hydrogen at pressure. It promises to be many times cheaper than any above ground solution and more modular and site independent than a salt cavern. Hydrogen storage is the necessary buffer between variable renewable hydrogen production and use for; production of ammonia for export, large scale transport refueling or dispatchable electric power production.

In Australia, industry accounts for 44% of endvuse energy, and just over half of that is process heat. There are renewable energy options for all of that heat use. Today ARENA released our study on renewables for industrial process heat. ( Download from ARENA’s site). This work was lead by ITP Thermal, working with in conjunction with Pitt&Sherry, the Institute for Sustainable Futures, Sustainability Advice Team and Beyond Zero Emissions. It highlights technology options for renewable process heat applications across Australian industries and provides indicative cost estimates for renewable energy compared with fossil energy.

The ITP team has prepared a CSP industry background report to inform a roadmap study lead by Jeanes Holland and associates. our report is on the publications page.
Download report It is also available on ARENA’s knowledge sharing website along with the roadmap document prepared by JHA and reports by other contributors.

There has been a lot of interest in hydrogen in Australia in the last few months. A small contribution from ITP on the subject is this recently released report of Hydrogen R&D in South Australia.  https://itpthermal.files.wordpress.com/2018/11/itp_sa_h2_rd3-0_141118.pdf 

Giles Parkinson at Renew Economy has written a nice article based on our study of Dispatchable RE Options: https://reneweconomy.com.au/batteries-hydro-hydrogen-what-are-australias-best-options-for-energy-storage-34053/