ADX in green hydrogen team-up with Austrian wind power major

ADX’s renewable energy ambitions have received a big boost after signing a green hydrogen agreement with leading Austrian wind power producer Windkraft Simonsfeld.

Under the memorandum of agreement, WKS will supply power from its wind power plants to the joint H₂ Project – a green hydrogen production and underground storage project in the Vienna Basin.

ADX Energy (ASX:ADX) will manage and coordinate the development, planning, execution and operations; supply the necessary reservoirs, wells, surface facilities and infrastructure; manage the marketing and sales of green hydrogen; and manage the hydrogen generation, storage and transportation facilities.

Securing WKS as a partner is a significant step towards advancing the company’s green hydrogen plans as it operates and builds wind power plants, of which it will have 91 operating by the end of this year, near its oil fields.

It also comes at a time when Europe is facing a severe natural gas shortage that has sent prices soaring up to six times higher than they were at the same time last year.

This neatly underscores the potential for green hydrogen produced using spare renewable capacity during warmer weather to alleviate future energy supply constraints.

“Our Austrian management team … has delivered an important strategic relationship with Windkraft Simonsfeld AG, which is a premier green energy producer and operator,” executive chairman Ian Tchacos said.

Tchacos said the supply of currently curtailed green electricity to the H₂ Project by WKS and their potential involvement in the project “significantly enhances the certainty of H₂Project formation at a rapid pace”.

“We look forward to working with WKS to capture existing and emerging hydrogen market opportunities by repurposing our assets for a long green energy production future.”

Green hydrogen project

The H₂ Project will realise ADX’s plans to leverage the depleted natural gas reservoirs present across its Vienna Basin assets for the underground storage of green hydrogen.

This is pretty significant given that each reservoir could potentially store about 500 times more energy than the largest Tesla energy storage Mega Pack (about 200MWh), or enough power for 20,000 households over one year, at a much lower price.

And ADX has at least 10 reservoirs that are at the ideal temperature and pressure for hydrogen storage.

Both parties will invest in the project and collaborate to secure dedicated financial incentives from the Austrian Government and the European Union to fund the project.

Green hydrogen from the project will be supplied either through existing gas pipeline systems, which ADX’s fields are already connected to, or by direct deliveries to buyers or end-users.

Geothermal pilot project

This deal with WKS comes just days after the company finalised an agreement with Siemens Energy and RED Drilling & Services to develop a small-scale demonstrator plant using a closed system carbon dioxide-based geothermal power generation technology.

This is expected to enable ADX to develop and deploy suitable geothermal power generation technologies on a large scale at its Australian licences as well as other central European jurisdictions with geothermal opportunities.

ADX and RED have already identified a suitable existing well site for the project with the appropriate heat transfer attributes, an exceptionally high geothermal gradient and reservoirs with excellent flow capacities.

The company will provide overall project management and execution of all subsurface aspects of the project while Siemens will provide thermodynamic engineering work for the evaluation of the power generation system.

RED will execute all well workover operations and well performance monitoring.

All necessary regulatory permits and agreements with the relevant authorities are currently being secured prior to commencement of pilot operations.

This article was developed in collaboration with ADX Energy, a Stockhead advertiser at the time of publishing.

This article does not constitute financial product advice. You should consider obtaining independent advice before making any financial decisions.