- Australia’s Fortescue Future Industries (FFI) and E.ON, one of Europe’s largest electricity service provider with 50 million customers, have signed an MOU agreement whereby five million tonnes per annum of green, renewable hydrogen (GH2) will be delivered to Europe by 2030.
Today, both partners signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to execute on this ambition, with binding elements between the parties to deliver on this mission. Each side has committed to a research and study partnership, with further detailed documentation and steps required related to supply.
This historic partnership marks E.ON’s and FFI’s broader ambition to lead the decarbonisation of Europe and to strengthen security of green energy supply at a time when Europe needs to reduce its energy dependence on fossil fuels from Russia as quickly as possible. Five million tonnes per annum (mtpa) of renewable GH2 is equal to approximately one third of the calorific energy Germany imports from Russia.
The agreement was signed in Berlin by Dr Andrew Forrest, Chairman of FFI, and Patrick Lammers, COO of E.ON, in the presence of Michael Kellner, Parliamentary State Secretary at the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action and Australia’s Ambassador to Germany Philip Green. The two companies will work together in the spirit of the Australia-Germany Hydrogen Accord announced in June 2021 at the G7.
Both companies will work together, in collaboration with their governments, regarding how to achieve supply as fast as possible. Both aim to ramp up quickly to five million tonnes per annum of GH2 by 2030. This will help to decarbonise thousands of medium-sized enterprises all over Germany and the Netherlands, as well as other European cities and communities to which E.ON distributes energy.
German Vice Chancellor and Minister for Economic Affairs and Climate Action Robert Habeck said “The race for large scale production and transportation of green hydrogen has taken off. The agreement between E.ON and FFI is a major step forward and puts them in a pole position for the delivery of green hydrogen to German industry. I congratulate the two companies and I strongly welcome their contribution to a future without fossil fuels. We will keep fostering initiatives like this one within the German-Australian Energy Partnership.”
It is intended that such large amounts of renewable GH2 will be powered by Australia’s immense renewable resources as well as FFI’s other planned global projects, and will be distributed by E.ON. The parties have also agreed to work together to analyse what solutions could look like to solve infrastructure issues and to build a secure value chain.
“We cannot keep gambling our energy security and the planet’s future on fossil fuels. Green hydrogen is the practical, implementable solution to decarbonise and lower emissions,” said Julie Shuttleworth, CEO of FFI.
Author: Bryan Groenendaal
