澳大利亚氢能起点-25页_3mb

Australia’s Hydrogen Tipping Point: Urgent Policy Action Needed

1. Hydrogen’s Role: Renewable hydrogen can enable decarbonization and drive clean manufacturing. It requires vast renewable energy and is crucial for hard-to-abate industries. Its market potential is enormous, but early adoption by the US, EU, and Gulf States poses a challenge.

2. Competitive Risk: Australia lacks equivalent policy support compared to aggressive competitors (e.g., US Inflation Reduction Act). Delayed action risks permanently losing leadership, reducing exports, delaying region economic diversification, and hindering decarbonization. The race for market share by early movers is critical.

3. Policy Response: A targeted, six-principled policy approach is recommended:

   • Time-bound intervention for priority value chain elements.
   • Leverage competition to boost domestic and export potential.
   • Focus on long-term value (local jobs, skills, diversification, decarbonization).
   • Prioritize simple, efficient policy execution.
   • Reinforce dynamic ecosystems (localize value chains, critical minerals).
   • Enable just transitions (place-based, integrates community needs).
   • A $2/kg hydrogen production credit for 10 years is proposed as the most cost-effective measure to generate scale and secure the first 10 years needed to capture the market.

4. Urgency: Australia has a short window to deploy scaled, integrated renewable energy and hydrogen production to become globally competitive and navigate the ongoing transformation safely and resiliently.