Media Release by Jemena
Leading energy infrastructure company Jemena has welcomed the New South Wales Government’s commitment to hydrogen both as part of the state’s future energy mix, and as a key step towards unlocking Australia’s potential to provide renewable gas to the rest of the world.
Jemena currently delivers gas to communities across New South Wales, servicing more than 1.4 million residential and business customers through its gas distribution network across the state.
Jemena’s Executive General Manager of Networks Shaun Reardon said the NSW Hydrogen Strategy is a great recognition of hydrogen’s role as a game changer for not only the energy sector, but the whole of the New South Wales economy.
“The strategy places Australia well on the path towards becoming a hydrogen superpower,” Mr Reardon said.
“We know green hydrogen has a central role to play in the decarbonisation of the New South Wales gas distribution network, and that it will prove crucial in powering those industries that can’t be easily electrified, such as manufacturing.
“Projections also show that if Australia repurposes its existing gas infrastructure to decarbonise the economy, it will be about half the cost of building and maintaining huge amounts of additional electricity infrastructure.”
Jemena is an advocate for a Renewable Gas Target of 10% for Australia, and sees it as a key step in establishing a viable renewable gas industry.
“The Renewable Energy Target helped to spur the development of renewable technologies in the electricity sector and a similar mechanism could jump-start the gas sector to truly commercialise zero emission gases and make them available to the Australian community and industries at scale,” Mr Reardon said.
Jemena is currently investing more than $30 million in partnership with the Australian Renewable Energy Agency on renewable gas projects. This includes Australia’s most comprehensive hydrogen project, the Western Sydney Green Gas Project, co-funded by the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA). Later this year, this project will start to blend 2 per cent green hydrogen into the NSW gas network – the first step in decarbonising Jemena’s gas network.
Jemena is also partnering with Sydney Water and ARENA on the Malabar biomethane project, which will turn wastewater into biomethane. This will start being injected into the NSW gas network next year.
