It was announced on March 8 that Iwatani, Japan Hydrogen Energy, ENEOS and Kawasaki Heavy Industries decided the places to ship hydrogen from Hastings of Victoria, Australia and take delivery at Kawasaki Coastal Area (Kawasaki City, Kanagawa Prefecture) in connection with the verification to commercialize the liquid hydrogen supply chain as part of the NEDO’s Green Innovation subsidization which is titled “Large-scale Hydrogen Supply Chain Establishment Project.”

Regarding the reason of each decision, they say the Hastings Area is close to the place of brown coal source which is thought to contribute to energy security, while Kawasaki Coastal Area may provide a potential of hydrogen demand in the Keihin Industrial Complex and the procurement of port facilities. The Hastings Area has once been utilized for the verification of pilot chain for the HySTRA implementation.

According to the plan, they will construct a shipping base equipped with two hydrogen liquefiers having a capacity of 60t/day each and five hydrogen tanks having a capacity of 10,000 m3 each in the Hastings Area of shipping place. Furthermore, they will provide one unit of hydrogen tank of 50,000 m3 capacity in the Kawasaki Coastal Area to take delivery.

For the sea transportation of liquid hydrogen, a commercial carrier vessel equipped with four units of 40,000 m3 tank will be used, but for verification test only one unit of tank will be used.

Though there is no detailed information available about the destination of hydrogen to be delivered, it seems that they will attempt to co-ordinate with the supply to the neighboring Keihin Industrial Complex and also with another G1 fund project with the theme of “Hydrogen Gas Turbine Power Generation Verification”.

According to NEDO’s report on the project, the construction of the verification facilities will start in 2024 with a scheduled start of verification from 2028.

In addition, as the commercialization will be verified until 2030 and from the first stage of commercialization in and after 2031, they aim to attain a hydrogen cost (on-board delivery) at 30 yen/ Nm3 by means of expanding the facilities of each verification and raising the supply of hydrogen up to 225,000 tons (2.52 billion Nm3).