ASX Green Energy: Woodside announces $5bn investment plan for new energy markets

Woodside’s chief executive officer Meg O’Neill has released the company’s plans to invest US$5bn in emerging new energy markets by 2030, positioning itself as an early mover.

According to O’Neil, Woodside (ASX:WPL) expects LNG to remain an important part of the energy mix in the Asia-Pacific region for decades to come, both as a lower carbon source of fuel for coal-dependant countries and as an convenient firming capacity for renewables.

“We have a vision to build a low cost, lower carbon, profitable, resilient and diversified portfolio,” she said.

“Woodside aims to do this by leveraging our world-class Tier 1 portfolio and allocating capital to the right opportunities at the right time.”

Transition to new energy underway by mid-2020s

In recent months the petroleum producer has made progress on four new energy projects: H2Perth and H2TAS in Australia as well as Bill Gates-backed Heliogen and H2OK in the US.

“Our projects are designed to be phased, starting small with the potential to build scale,” ONeil said.

“In each case the project location has been chosen for specific reasons — preferably near available renewables or close to market, ensuring they are customer led.”

“We expect that in the mid-2020s the transition to new energy will be underway, including the start-up of the first of our own projects,” she said.

Speaking on the merger with BHP’s petroleum business, O’Neil added that Woodside will have a larger, diversified portfolio of long-life assets as well as increased cash generation to build resilience and support future investment and shareholder returns.

Woodside expands hydrogen portfolio to the US

Yesterday the company unveiled plans to expand its hydrogen production opportunities to the US, after securing land in Oklahoma for future development.

Woodside said it secured a lease and option to purchase 94 acres (38 hectares) of vacant land in Ardmore, Oklahoma to underpin the development of a modular hydrogen facility called the HZOK project after entering a memorandum of understanding with Hyzon Motors.

The H2OK concept involves construction of an initial 290- megawatt (MW) facility, which will use electrolysis to produce up to 90 tonnes per day (tpd) of liquid hydrogen for the heavy transport sector.

Woodside has completed preliminary design of the modular, scalable production facility and is evaluating tenders to enable commencement of front-end engineering design before the end of this year.

The project is targeting a final investment decision in the second half of 2022, and first liquid hydrogen production in 2025

Back in October Woodside announced its collaboration with renewable energy technology company Heliogen, involving the proposed construction of a 5 MW commercial-scale demonstration facility in California using Heliogen’s concentrated solar power technology.

Carnegie wins European wave energy contract

Ocean energy technology developer Carnegie Clean Energy (ASX:CCE) has been selected alongside six other companies to deliver phase-1 activities under the EuropeWave Pre-Commercial Procurement (PCP) program.

The EuropeWave PCP is a collaboration between Wave Energy Scotland (WES), a subsidiary of the Scottish Government’s Highlands and Islands Enterprise and the Basque Energy Agency (EVE) in Spain.

Europe and the UK are driving forces behind the adoption of wave energy with several investments and support mechanisms underway.

Through Carnegie’s wholly owned subsidiary, CETO Wave Energy Ireland Limited, the company has been paid €291k (A$463k) to undertake tank testing and to deliver a CETO concept design at the open-water facilities of the Biscay Marine Energy Platform (BiMEP) in Basque Country as well as the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) in Scotland during phase-3.

EuropeWave’s objective is to accelerate the development of cost-effective wave energy converter systems that can survive in the harsh ocean environment, and ultimately EuropeWave PCP will contract three of the phase-1 contractors to deploy their prototypes at BiMEP or EMEC in phase-3.

Phase-1 activities will kick off on January 3, 2022, for a period of 7 months.

Wave energy to complement existing renewables

Carnegies chief executive officer Jonathan Fiévez said: “Being selected for this contract is a strong third-party validation of the technology we’ve developed.

“We are thrilled to be part of the EuropeWave PCP program, which will show future investors the wealth of exciting opportunities emerging within the wave energy industry.”

From Fiévezs’ perspective, programs like this show the urgency and opportunity to drive wave energy and accelerate global efforts towards decarbonisation.

“Wave energy is beginning to gain traction and will complement existing renewables such as wind and solar,” he said.

“Harnessing the power of our vast oceans is a vital step in our transition to the use of sustainable clean energy, and to achieve net zero emissions as soon as possible.”

Ocean energy to provide 10% of Europe’s electricity by 2050

According to CCE, The European Commission’s Strategic Energy Technology Plan has set ambitious targets for ocean energy technologies to reduce its levelised cost of energy over the next fifteen years to at least 20 c€/kWh (2025), 15 c€/kWh (2030) and 10 c€/kWh (2035).

This means by 2050 ocean energy will be able to provide 10% of Europe’s current electricity needs and 400,000 jobs.

Following the conclusion of Phase 1, another rigorous selection process will be conducted, with five companies out of the seven selected for Phase 2, and subsequently, three companies selected for the third and final phase.

Each company involved will retain ownership of the intellectual property, the results and any physical models, prototypes or other test pieces produced during the PCP.

The final contract is expected to be signed in December 2021.