![BOC's site at Cringila will host Australia's largest hydrogen production site, if current plans go ahead. Picture by Robert Peet BOC's site at Cringila will host Australia's largest hydrogen production site, if current plans go ahead. Picture by Robert Peet](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/123041529/bf5f81bc-99c7-4d26-85eb-2b80da97a4b2.jpg/r0_97_5472_3186_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
Port Kembla will soon have the largest green hydrogen facility in Australia, with BOC revealing its plans for a hydrogen complex in the Illawarra.
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Speaking at an i3net industry breakfast, Vesna Olles, director of strategy and clean energy at BOC, shared with industrial and political leaders the company's plans for a hydrogen and technology hub at its plant in Cringila.
The details follow the NSW government granting $28.5 million to the company as one of only two successful projects in the government's Hydrogen Hub initiative in March.
The hydrogen produced on site will be initially used to power zero emissions vehicles, including buses and trucks, as well as BOC's existing hydrogen customers in the medical, manufacturing, space and defence sectors.
BOC, which is owned by German parent company Linde, already produces and supplies green hydrogen to vehicles at its Bulwer Island site in Queensland.
Ms Olles said targeting the transport sector first was a strategy that had been developed in other markets around the globe.
"What we've found in Germany and in the US is all of the green hydrogen sector and capability is built off the mobility sector first, and then you stack all of the other use cases on top," she said.
Building the infrastructure for zero emissions vehicles would be phase one of the project, ahead of phase two which would involve increasing the capacity of the plant to supply green hydrogen on an industrial scale.
"The [NSW] government asked us to be more ambitious around what does phase two look like, how do you get to 650 megawatts?" Ms Olles said.
"We looked at all of the industry in the Illawarra and it's a great environment because it does have cement production, the potential for space and defence, and obviously the largest steel manufacturer in the country.
"This is the sweet spot."
![Illawarra industrial and political leaders heard BOC's plans for a hydrogen plant in Cringila. Picture by Adam McLean Illawarra industrial and political leaders heard BOC's plans for a hydrogen plant in Cringila. Picture by Adam McLean](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/123041529/d9526259-f612-4b54-a2c4-e7a80bd0fdbf.jpg/r0_687_6720_4480_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
The scaled-up version would be reliant upon the demand for green hydrogen from the mobility sector, Ms Olles said, and the company was targeting having hydrogen ready to fill up vehicles by 2025.
The first phase would involve a 10 megawatt electrolyser and then phase two would comprise a 650 megawatt electrolyser, dwarfing by a magnitude of roughly three thousand BOC's existing green hydrogen electrolyser in Queensland.
"There is nothing bigger than this in Australia right now," Ms Olles said. "This is developing new markets and a new sector."
The details come as Coregas submits plans with Wollongong City Council for its hydrogen refuelling plant within the Port Kembla steelworks.
While the site was initially expected to open in 2021, it faced delays in the delivery of the infrastructure required. Trucks are expected to begin using the refuelling site within months.
As global investment in hydrogen as part of the shift to green energy ramps up with the United States Inflation Reduction Act turbocharging investment in the sector, Wollongong MP Paul Scully said the region had an opportunity to be part of the "largest change to the way we function as an industrial economy".
"It's not something that's going to be given to us, it's going to be something that as a region, we're going to have to seize for ourselves," he said at the industry event.
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