28 February 2024, Sydney – A new initiative aiming to foster a constructive dialogue to advance green hydrogen production, investment, and trade between Australia and the EU officially kicked off today.

The Australia-EU Green Hydrogen Dialogue will bring together small groups of key stakeholders from business, policy, civil society and academia to facilitate the exchange of knowledge and best practices, with the ultimate objective of expediting the development, production, and trade of renewable hydrogen products between Australia and the EU.

Part of the EU Climate Dialogues project and funded by the EU, the project promotes collaboration between the two regions, leveraging global expertise for sustainable green hydrogen production and policy alignment. The project will be led by Climate-KIC Australia in partnership with the ARC Training Centre for the Global Hydrogen Economy (GlobH2E), NSW Decarbonisation Innovation Hub’s Powerfuels including Hydrogen Network and the Institute for Sustainable Futures (ISF) at the University of Technology Sydney.

With EU hydrogen demand expected to surge, the dialogue creates a pathway for Australian projects to access EU markets by aligning with energy and climate governance protocols, ensuring sustainability standards are met.

However, accelerating green hydrogen production requires in-depth technical analysis. The Dialogues will explore the current state and emerging regulations in the EU, Australia, and the Asia Pacific region to identify opportunities for scaling up.

The challenges and opportunities associated with the scaling up of green hydrogen production, investment, and trade will be the focus of the first Dialogue session, being held on March 20.

In this small, focused session, Australian and European industry players, policymakers, researchers, and investors will assess the current landscape of green hydrogen production and trade, exploring technological, economic, regulatory, and market barriers, along with opportunities for growth and innovation.

By sharing knowledge around successful case studies, innovative technologies and effective policy frameworks, it is anticipated that the session will lay the groundwork for productive collaborations and partnerships, and towards the development of actionable insights, strategies and recommendations for policymakers, industry leaders, investors and other stakeholders to expedite the transition towards a hydrogen economy.

Future sessions will cover:

• Social license and community acceptance – exploring issues, constraints on growth, socioeconomic and environmental impacts, access to water and community benefit-sharing;
• Renewables in the green hydrogen supply chain – analysing the scale and constraints on the provision of renewables (including solar PV, onshore and offshore wind), in developing green hydrogen.
• Financing and investment in green hydrogen – examining the cost of capital and capital flows between the EU and Australia. Exploring incentives for overseas investors and connection to sustainable finance taxonomy developments in the EU and Australia
• Opportunities beyond hydrogen – Power to X; secondary conversions to drive industry decarbonisation and indirect electrification through low/zero-carbon fuel derivatives.

The Australia-EU Green Hydrogen Dialogue enhance public awareness of the transformative potential of renewable hydrogen, to contribute to the energy transition, climate neutrality and environmental sustainability. Sign up to receive periodic updates from the project, including outcomes from Dialogue sessions. Reach out directly if you feel you would make a productive addition to future sessions.