Hydrogen Power Plant

Mr PATTERSON (Morphett) (14:59): My question is again to the Premier. What South Australian companies have been awarded tenders or contracts to deliver the government's hydrogen power plant and what is the value of these contracts?

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS (West Torrens—Minister for Infrastructure and Transport, Minister for Energy and Mining) (15:00): That is a good question. There are a number of South Australian companies that have been involved in the tender process—

Members interjecting:

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: You're relieved, are you? One of your questions you don't think is completely stupid and you're relieved? You should be very proud of that—hashtag winning.

There are a number of South Australian companies that have tendered for this very important project. There are projects like civil works, there are projects like security. There are obviously dramatic upgrades to electricity infrastructure that are required, but one of the most important things that the team has done with the electricity upgrades is, of course, there is limited capacity in Whyalla and the South Australian government was faced with a very difficult choice here. Given that there was only limited capacity, we could take up that capacity which would sterilise any future investments at Port Bonython.

You might remember there was a process begun by the previous government to incentivise hydrogen—God forbid—production at Port Bonython, where they put out to tender the Port Bonython project, where they had allocated considerable tens of millions of dollars of state government money towards developing that, which, of course, requires energy infrastructure. The questions that we needed to understand were: one, do we sterilise the site and put all of those costs on new contractors who want to build other hydrogen facilities in the Upper Spencer Gulf or does the government do the right thing and bear some of that cost and actually expand capacity to allow greater levels of draw from the grid in that area?

The contractors involved in that are obviously SA Power Networks, ElectraNet, Enerven and a whole series of other small providers. There is a detailed list of providers who have tendered. The Office of Hydrogen Power SA actually has a presence in Whyalla, where we are taking expressions of interest from people who want to work, obviously contractors who want to get work from it. There would be a number of opportunities for people to work.

There are logistics: obviously importing equipment through the port at the GFG site and there are contractors involved making sure that that port is able to bring in equipment as we need, whether it is the generators or any other equipment that might be needed to be brought in through that port. So there is a holistic level of involvement.

Ultimately, I think the point that the member is trying to get to through his questions is that there are foreign entities who have won tenders for this, because hydrogen production ultimately is built by a number of companies offshore. We have already announced BOC Linde—these are German companies—and, of course, there is ATCO which is a Canadian company. ATCO have had a long presence here in South Australia, with their chief executive living in the northern suburbs of Adelaide as a young child growing up while her father worked here. There is a lot of involvement from local contractors and, of course, international contractors, and I would be happy to compile a list eventually for the member.