Australia is heavily reliant on fossil fuels for its economy, both domestically and internationally, being relied on for heating our homes, moving from A to B, and as an export commodity.

Hydrogen is a key commodity to Australia’s rich economic future, with potential for a new global Hydrogen market to reach into the hundreds of billions within the next decade.

Pilot plants to generate hydrogen from renewables are already under construction, but there are many challenges to overcome to utilise this resource. Speakers will discuss the latest innovations, hurdles, and progress to commercialisation of the key technologies which are progressing Australia towards a green hydrogen economy. The webinar will focus on some of the key opportunities identified for hydrogen as an energy storage medium (high-volume, low-value) and to provide zero-emissions transport (low-volume, high-value).

 Speakers

MC: Phil O'Neil - Hydrogen Transformation Partner, Worley 

Phil is one of the leads for Green Hydrogen initiatives for the global Worley group. In his 25 year career, he has worked with a range of industrial and government clients developing policy, strategic and technical approaches for New Energy solutions, energy efficiency, carbon abatement and sustainability. He has led policy, strategy, technical, value improvement, risk and techno-economic engagements.

Phil has worked across a range of industries including oil and gas, electricity generation and networks, pulp and paper, food processing, minerals, metals and chemicals.  He is currently advising on a range of hydrogen strategy, production and utilisation projects in Australia and internationally.

Bahman Shabani

Associate Professor Bahman Shabani is leading the Sustainable Hydrogen Energy Laboratory (SHEL) Group, at RMIT University. He has 23-years of industry and research experience with, 16 years of that dedicated to various energy storage and particularly hydrogen energy systems. He conducts applied and fundamental studies on various hydrogen-based energy storage and power supply solutions for stationary and mobile applications such as: solar-hydrogen CHP systems, integrated renewable energy systems, fuel cell based APUs, unitised regenerative fuel cells, fuel cell components, etc. He has special interest in thermal management and performance enhancement techniques of energy storage solutions. A/Prof. Shabani has over 60 highly cited papers published in top rank journals in the field as well as several book chapters with globally respected publishers such as Royal Society of Chemistry, Springer, etc.

 Keith Lovegrove

Keith is a leading expert in concentrating solar power (CSP). He has more than 30 years’ experience in solar energy combined with 15 years of teaching experience in undergraduate and postgraduate courses in Energy Systems and Systems Engineering. He has worked extensively on the storage of solar energy with hydrogen and ammonia. He was previously the leader of the Solar Thermal Group at the Australian National University. In that role he was the lead inventor and design and construction team leader of the 500m2 (world’s largest) Generation II Big Dish solar concentrator. 

Keith has a Bachelor of Science (First Class Honours) and PhD from the Australian National University. He has represented Australia as International Energy Agency (IEA) Solar PACES (Power and Chemical Energy Systems) Solar Chemistry task representative over many years and currently is the alternative executive committee representative. In 2012, he was a Member of the Australian Prime Minister’s Science, Engineering and Innovation Council, Expert Working Group on Climate Energy and Water Links. He is a member of the University of Adelaide’s Centre for Energy Technology advisory board, board member of the Australian Solar Thermal Association and also serves on the Australian Renewable Energy Agency’s advisory panel.