South Australia is lining up to become a leader in hydrogen fuel production.

SA Energy Minister Tom Koutsantonis has announced the state will leverage its increasing supply of clean and low-cost renewable energy to power the creation of the next-gen fuel.

Hydrogen is pegged as the next big way to power transport, as it can act like petroleum-based fuels to deliver power to even the biggest and heaviest vehicles, but creates only clean water vapour as exhaust.

The Minister says the state has the “aim to capitalise on our abundance of renewable resources to become the green hydrogen capital of Australia”.

He outlined a split focus, on “downstream” measures to decarbonise the state’s transport, agriculture and industry, and “upstream” measures to develop a hydrogen industry.

The plans include an expansion of

  • Hydrogen storage, compression and dispensing infrastructure
  • Fuel cell buses and trucks
  • Fuel cell applications in defence
  • Electrolysers
  • Stand-alone fuel cells