{"id":468823,"date":"2026-09-06T10:22:18","date_gmt":"2026-09-06T17:22:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=468823"},"modified":"2026-09-06T10:22:20","modified_gmt":"2026-09-06T17:22:20","slug":"its-another-sad-blow-to-what-once-was-the-worlds-largest-renewable-energy-proposal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=468823","title":{"rendered":"It\u2019s another sad blow to what once was The world\u2019s largest renewable energy proposal"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
Australia map with solar panels inserted on a whith background<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

From CFACT<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Joanne Nova<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The project in the vast arid-lands of Western Australia was so ambitious they were going to have to build a whole new small town on the coast, with its own desalination plant<\/a> \u2014  because rainfall is so low. \u201cWe need to have lakes\u201d the project manager said.  Sure<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unfortunately the same thing that makes a site perfect for solar power is exactly the reason that almost no one wants to live there, it\u2019s baking hot, waterless, barely inhabited and thus \u201cavailable\u201d for acres of solar panels. (Everything that makes it good for solar and wind power makes it horrible for the economics of collecting all that \u201cfree\u201d energy). Let\u2019s just say wages need to be high<\/em>. The sun is cheap in the Pilbara, but telecoms, food, water, air conditioning, houses, and lakes are not. Nor are 5,000 kilometer subsea cables, or 1,000 miles of transmission lines to major population centers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

BP abandoned the project a year ago, following in the footsteps of Vestas, Macquarie and others that had abandoned it before BP did. In January our government gave it $22 million<\/a> to study how to make hydrogen projects work in the Pilbara. Pfft, went that cash.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now the owners have downgraded the 26GW venture back to a 15GW project that was approved in 2020. Forget the big export plans, now they just hope to power, you guessed it, some miners and data-centers in Port Hedland with a small 1 GW starter. Ammonia, may or may not be produced closer to Port Hedland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Australian Renewable Energy Hub\u2019s $50b plan shrinks<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

\u2014 by Peter Milne, Boiling Cold<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The size of Australia\u2019s largest renewable energy project has been cut by nearly half, and the remote Pilbara site will no longer produce ammonia from green hydrogen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The company spokeswoman said the project strategy subsequently evolved toward supplying renewable electricity and hydrogen to support industry in the Pilbara, including green iron, mining decarbonisation and critical minerals processing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is still just that small detail about needing 550 km of high voltage power lines to reach the customers:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To succeed, the project needs the Pilbara Green Link<\/a> to connect AREH and the Pilbara power network with 550km of high-voltage 330kV transmission lines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perry Williams and Nick Evans in The Australian explain that BP abandoned it because customers just weren\u2019t willing to pay:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Intercontinental Energy and CWP Global\u2019s Australian Renewable Energy Hub scales back hydrogen<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

BP later revealed its decision to depart the Hub was sealed by the reluctance of future customers to back up their support for green power<\/a> with financial commitments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The oil major\u2019s country president Lucy Nation said at the time its most likely customers \u2014 widely understood to include large iron ore miners operating in the Pilbara and countries such as Japan \u2014 had significantly delayed plans to commit to long-term offtake agreements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And Chris Bowen\u2019s Big Hydrogen plan has reached 0.2% of it\u2019s target!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Released in 2024 by Energy Minister Chris Bowen, the National Hydrogen Strategy set out the government\u2019s ambition to boost production of renewable-generated hydrogen at a competitive cost, setting a target of 500,000 tonnes by 2030.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, federal bureaucrats in May confirmed that domestic production levels were currently 1100 tonnes \u2013 amounting to 0.2 per cent of the target<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was once a giant flagship proposal that pulled in not just BP but InterContinental Energy, CWP Global, and Macquaries Green Investment Group. Scores of engineers and entrepeneurs must have tried to make the numbers work as they chased the solar-wind-hydrogen fairy hob goblin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet here we are again, like an impossible Escher puzzle. The illusion of \u201cfree energy\u201d beguiles the human brain but the cost of collecting, storing and transporting the invisible fire fools us every time. We just have to find an empty first world desert near the equator and 10 million people, and an endlessly replenishing hydroelectricity dam and it will all be perfect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article originally appeared at JoNova<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The sun is cheap in the Pilbara, but telecoms, food, water, air conditioning, houses, and lakes are not. Nor are 5,000-kilometer subsea cables, or 1,000 miles of transmission lines to major population centers.<\/p>\n

The size of Australia\u2019s largest renewable energy project has been cut by nearly half, and the remote Pilbara site will no longer produce ammonia from green hydrogen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121246920,"featured_media":468824,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_wpcom_ai_launchpad_first_post":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"The sun is cheap in the Pilbara, but telecoms, food, water, air conditioning, houses, and lakes are not. Nor are 5,000-kilometer subsea cables, or 1,000 miles of transmission lines to major population centers.\n\nThe size of Australia's largest renewable energy project has been cut by nearly half, and the remote Pilbara site will no longer produce ammonia from green hydrogen.","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[691833545,691838093,691819849,691845191,691845190,691819094,691818412,691818267,691845189],"class_list":["post-468823","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-british-petroleum-bp","tag-chris-bowen-climate-change-and-energy-minister","tag-green-hydrogen","tag-intercontinental-energy","tag-national-hydrogen-strategy","tag-renewable-green-energy","tag-solar-panels","tag-solar-power","tag-western-australia","fallback-thumbnail"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paxLW1-1XXF","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":384075,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=384075","url_meta":{"origin":468823,"position":0},"title":"Claim: 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