Berkeley Vale based hydrogen company, Star Scientific Limited, has signed a game changing Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Department of Energy of the Republic of the Philippines to help transition the country to green hydrogen as a fuel source.
This agreement is a first of its kind for an Australian business and the largest single boost to Australia’s role in developing the global hydrogen economy.
A significant part of the agreement is that they will look into retro-fitting the Philippines’ existing coal fired power plants to run on Star Scientific’s Hydrogen Energy Release Optimiser (HERO) technology.
Star Scientific is a leading hydrogen research, development and deployment company with a global reach and scope.
It discovered and developed the unique HERO technology for converting hydrogen into heat without combustion, the only outputs are heat and pure water.
HERO won the S&P Platts Global Energy Award for Emerging Technology of the Year 2020.
Global Group Chairman, Andrew Horvath, said HERO was designed to begin its commercial deployment through retro-fitting coal-fired power stations, which would ensure the ongoing life of the industrial infrastructure associated with power generation whilst making it zero emissions.
He said the technology could be used for decentralised small-scale power solutions in remote locations or for large-scale power generation and industrial heat production.
“It is also deployable for highly efficient decentralised ocean water desalination at a large or small scale.”
Horvath said he was proud than an Australian innovation had captured the attention of a national government that wanted to drive its economic development through an environmentally sustainable energy source for power generation and water desalination.
“For the Philippines, which is largely reliant on imported fossil fuels, HERO heralds the hydrogen revolution and we will also work together to explore the use of green hydrogen production in the Philippines using an abundance of offshore wind resources,” Horvath said.
He said they would investigate decentralised scalable power systems for all of the Philippines’ inhabited islands using green hydrogen, HERO and the new breed of supercritical CO2 turbines.
“We also aim to use the HERO system for decentralised desalination of ocean water.
“The aim of the working relationship is to bring abundant clean energy and desalinated water to the people of the Philippines, additionally, the Philippines will have the opportunity to offer global companies zero emissions manufacturing capability.
“This agreement with the Philippines’ Department of Energy represents a significant milestone in the development of the global hydrogen economy.
“Thanks to this bold and visionary step by the Philippines, we can begin to see the reality of whole economies turning over to hydrogen and a rapid acceleration to sustainable energy on a global scale.
“This is just the start,” Horvath said.
Sue Murray