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Australia could become the Saudi Arabia of green hydrogen, says European energy boss

Stuart McKinnonThe West Australian
Thu, 21 July 2022 12:20PM
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Stuart McKinnon


Patrick Lammers. Credit: Gareth Harmer

Australia could become to green hydrogen what Saudi Arabia is to oil, according to the senior executive of a German energy and utilities giant.

Patrick Lammers is the chief operating officer of E.ON, which in March signed a draft agreement with Fortescue Metals Group’s green energy subsidiary Fortescue Future Industries that will see the two companies work together to supply 5 million tonnes of green hydrogen a year by 2030.

Visiting Australia this week to view Fortescue’s existing operations and discuss plans for green hydrogen, Mr Lammers said Australia was in a unique position to be a global green energy giant because of its favourable climate with plenty of wind and sun, space for scale and stable political environment.

He said if Australia could harness green electrons to power its mining industry, it could produce green iron ore and ultimately green steel.
“That would outperform the market completely, especially in Europe where a carbon tax is not that far away,” he said.
“Now we have an energy crisis but that crisis will subside one way or another and that (a carbon tax) will be happening.
“If Australia gets this right and gets their act together and incentivises the industry... you could be the new Saudi Arabia in exporting green hydrogen.”

Mr Lammers said Saudi Arabia had a lot of oil, which no-one would use in future, and a lot of sun, but they didn’t have the same rule of law, democracy and stability of political systems.

He said Europe had learnt a valuable lesson following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that it was unwise to rely on a dictator (Russian president Vladimir Putin) for its energy needs.

A former Shell executive and one-time chief executive of Dyson Group, Mr Lammers said he was not surprised about the energy crisis on the East Coast of Australia.

While saying he was reluctant to comment specifically on the Australian situation, Mr Lammers said Europe had seen its “fair share of crises” because of ever changing governments, a failure to plan and a short-term outlook.

The Essen-based E.ON runs one of the world’s biggest investor-owned electric utility service providers with 50 million customers across 30 countries.

Mr Lammers said he was confident FFI could achieve its target of producing commercial quantities of green hydrogen by 2030 and exporting it, based on what he had seen on his visit to Australia.

“We believe the economics can very well work, and we are determined to make it work,” he said.

Mr Lammers said he believed green hydrogen would be produced and used commercially in Europe within two years, with electrolysers already being built in the Netherlands and Germany.