Local engineering company and GMC member Austeng has received $500,000 in funding from the Federal Government’s Go Green Co-Innovation Program to lead a groundbreaking project aimed at accelerating the use of renewable hydrogen in industrial applications requiring high temperatures.
The initiative will develop and demonstrate a financially viable, commercial-scale system that produces hydrogen via an on-site electrolyser using renewable power and blends it with natural gas. This approach enables significant reductions in CO₂ emissions while leveraging existing gas infrastructure and avoiding expensive and energy-intensive compression, storage, and transport challenges.
Many Australian businesses rely on industrial appliances that cannot easily transition to electric alternatives, as electricity cannot reach the high temperatures required.
Austeng Managing Director Ross George said: “This funding enables us to demonstrate a safe, practical and cost-effective pathway for Australian industry to embrace renewable hydrogen. By blending hydrogen into existing gas infrastructure, we can accelerate decarbonisation without asking businesses to abandon equipment that still has many years of productive life.”
SunGreenH2 Co-Founder & CEO Tulika Raj added: “We are excited to partner with Austeng and leading Australian universities to demonstrate our cutting-edge electrolyser technology and scalable solutions for SMEs.”
The project is supported by Deakin University’s Hycel Technology Hub and Swinburne University of Technology.