The ACT has joined the Smart Energy Council’s Zero Carbon Certification Scheme, a national certification scheme for renewable hydrogen, ammonia, and metal manufacture.
Minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction, Shane Rattenbury said the certification scheme, of which the ACT will be a founding partner, was an important step towards establishing the zero emissions industries of the future.
“Hydrogen is created by using a lot of electricity, and that electricity can come from polluting sources, like coal, or clean sources, like wind or solar generation,” Mr Rattenbury said.
“Unfortunately, and unsurprisingly, the Federal Government and other jurisdictions want to create hydrogen using fossil fuels like coal or gas,” he said.
“Not only would this increase Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions, but it would also miss the opportunity for a world-leading green hydrogen industry, powered by our rapidly growing renewable energy sector.”
Mr Rattenbury said the Territory believed that any investment in the hydrogen industry should be in green hydrogen, which only used electricity from renewable sources.
He said the Smart Energy Council’s scheme was important because it would enable hydrogen, and related products, to be certified as zero emissions and ensure that hydrogen was solely created from green sources.
“It is critical that we can track how these products are manufactured to assure customers that the end product is genuinely zero emissions,” he said.
Mr Rattenbury said ActewAGL’s hydrogen refuelling station in Fyshwick would be the first project certified under the scheme.
He said the refuelling station used 100 per cent renewable electricity to produce green hydrogen and was an example of the type of projects that could benefit from certification.
