Stationary storage systems are big batteries – traditionally lithium-ion or vanadium flow — designed to store excess power from the power grid for use during expensive peak demand periods.

A new company called Endua now wants to make regional communities, mines and remote infrastructure self-sustainable using green hydrogen-powered ‘energy banks’.

These 150kW power banks are standalone on-site units that generate electricity created from 100% renewable energy, which is stored as hydrogen and then converted back to electricity by fuel cells.

Sort of like a diesel generator, but without the emissions footprint.

The company will use new ‘electrolysis’ technology developed at CSIRO to produce hydrogen within the device, “leveraging the agency’s pioneering science and experience to make it possible to store and deliver renewable energy in a cost-effective way compared to traditional fossil fuel sources like diesel generators”.

The new company is backed by the CSIRO and Ampol, the country’s largest fuel network.

Ampol, supporting Endua as part of its decarbonisation strategy, will help develop, test and commercialise the technology, “leveraging the increasing need for low carbon off-grid alternative energy solutions among its base of ~80,000 business customers nationally”.

Sales will initially focus on the lucrative $1.5 billion per year off-grid diesel generator market.

Endua chief exec Paul Sernia also founded EV unicorn Tritium.

“Hydrogen will play a crucial role in our transition but only with the right technology and business model to make hydrogen power generation and storage cost-effective,” he says.

“Endua is making both achievable. We believe it’s possible to give everyone access to clean power, whether in the city or the outback.

“We’re solving the hardest problems in the move to net zero, for all purposes, not just those that ‘fit’ the renewables profile.”

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