The economic value of government precompetitive geoscience data and analysis for Australia's hydrogen industry

Hydrogen is expected to be a key driver of the globe’s transition to net zero.   Australia is investing significantly, across government and business, as it pushes towards scalable and cost-effective hydrogen production. The Australian Government wants to develop and cultivate the domestic hydrogen industry to become a hydrogen superpower – exporting clean energy across the globe. With current expectations that the hydrogen industry could add an additional $50 billion to Australia’s GDP, the industry presents a great opportunity to support economic growth as Australia transitions to net zero (DCCEEW, 2022a).   However, much of hydrogen production remains unproven commercially at the necessary scale and there are still a lot of unknowns about how to effectively build this industry in Australia.   Geoscience Australia (GA), as Australia’s national geoscience agency, is undertaking precompetitive geoscience data and analysis to support the hydrogen sector. This includes conducting research and data analysis to lower the risk of exploration for natural hydrogen and salt caverns, the development of tools to support decision-making by hydrogen producers, and economic assessments into the feasibility of green steel production.  The economic benefits of precompetitive geoscience data and analysis for the hydrogen industry Deloitte Access Economics (DAE) was engaged to identify, quantify and, where possible, monetise the economic benefits of GA’s work across four case studies.   As hydrogen is a nascent sector, there is little to no current commercial activity. This limits the ability to estimate the full extent of the economic benefits of GA’s work. As the hydrogen industry matures over the next five years, we expect more economic benefits will be realised, particularly as tenement uptake translates into hydrogen production.   Through analysis of four current case studies, it is evident that GA’s work is providing clarity and confidence to support large-scale investment decisions. Overall, GA’s work has the potential to deliver Australia an important competitive advantage and fast-track development of the local hydrogen industry.   Hydrogen Economic Fairways Tool (HEFT): found to enable timely and informed decision-making and lower the risk of investing in, and entering, the hydrogen industry. Specifically, the tool provides significant efficiencies for hydrogen companies, saving $30,000 to $50,000 per prospective project in time and reduced due diligence costs.   GA research on natural hydrogen: expected to have stimulated tenement uptake activity in South Australia, to explore for natural hydrogen. If even just one tenement was taken up as a result of GA’s data, it could be associated with economic benefits of around $22 million to the hydrogen industry, over a ten-year period (2022-23 to 2031-32).   GA research on salt cavern storage: hydrogen storage can be prohibitively expensive, which can stall the development of hydrogen projects. GA’s research highlighted salt caverns as a cheaper alternative. If just one industry player switched from conventional gas storage to salt caverns, salt cavern storage could lower the cost by $208 million, over ten years. In addition, salt cavern storage could avoid the loss of $4.1 million worth of hydrogen over the same period (2022-23 to 2031-32).   The techno-economic assessment of green steel production: GA’s research identified cost-effective locations for green steel production, which could be competitive with conventional steel at a carbon price of $148 per tonne of carbon dioxide