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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2023-02-21 Daily Xml
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Grievance Debate

Hydrogen Power Plant

Mr PATTERSON (Morphett) (15:08): It is a new year, and that means more broken promises, more spin from this Malinauskas Labor government. This time, it is their $593 million experimental hydrogen power station. The Labor government released their request for proposals for their experimental hydrogen power station with little fanfare, hoping no-one would notice, just before Christmas.

Well, in what is a hydrogen bombshell, the request for proposals has revealed that the Premier has completely changed not only the nature but the scope of what was promised to the South Australian people at the election. He has confirmed that he cannot deliver what he promised and for the amount that he promised.

The Premier has dropped his promise of 3,600 tonnes of liquefied hydrogen storage in order to avoid massive cost blowouts in the hundreds of millions of dollars. It is not surprising when you consider 3,600 tonnes is 10 times the amount of storage at Cape Canaveral for NASA's rocket program. The cost of this 3,600 tonnes of liquefied storage was proposed by Labor to be only $31 million.

Mr Tarzia: Laughable.

Mr PATTERSON: Laughable. Before the election, expert advice from CSIRO had shown that that amount of liquefied hydrogen storage would cost north of $310 million. In spite of this, before the election, the now minister doubled down on his modelling and reiterated his faulty costings to the South Australian public. The Labor government has now gone out to market after the election, and the market has proved them wrong. Subsequently, they have dropped any commitment to this 3,600 tonnes of liquefied hydrogen storage.

Now, this was one of their four main pillars of their hydrogen plan, and they have had to drop it. So this calls into question their modelling and costings for all parts of their plan. They have also given up their promise to construct a base load combined cycle turbine, instead opting for a peaking open cycle turbine. Just remember, the last combined cycle turbine commissioned in South Australia was over 20 years ago.

Energy analysts said about the combined cycle turbine just last year that it made no sense because they do not have the flexibility to efficiently operate in a system where wind and solar at times are producing energy at very low cost. This change, from a base load generator to a peaking plant, fundamentally changes the nature of the project. It means Labor's modelled bill reductions and job numbers are now up in smoke.

It also has major implications for industry in South Australia who were promised base load generation before the election. It has also come to light that Labor are contemplating the use of a hydrocarbon gas supply to help power this generator, not just hydrogen as promised, and flying in the face of the Premier's pledge to use green hydrogen that will produce no carbon pollution.

In another shock, the request for proposal also exposes the Labor government is actively considering co-ownership opportunities, meaning that the plant may not end up being fully owned by the state government as promised. This means that the Premier's experimental hydrogen power station, which he claimed would be state-owned and run, might end up being a public-private collaboration, further proving the costs are out of control and this project is in grave danger of running over budget.

The Labor government's lofty hydrogen promise is in peril and facing massive cost blowouts. The Premier and the minister are frantically changing the scale and scope of this project to try to make it fit within their $593 million budget. But it has been proven time and time again that Labor cannot manage their budgets. Just recently we have learnt of the $5.5 billion cost blowout for the final piece of the north-south corridor, so these changes and cuts brought on by the minister mean the final result for Labor's hydrogen power station will be drastically different to what South Australians were promised at the state election.

These massive changes to the project also call into question the number of jobs that this plan will actually provide, and the Premier must be up-front with South Australians about how many jobs will be created, rather than try to claim the thousands of jobs already created or in the pipeline from the former Liberal government's great work in this area that attracted over $15 billion worth of renewable energy projects to South Australia.

The minister must explain why he is spending $593 million of taxpayers' money on a power station that Labor has even admitted will not even reduce power prices for families, because right now all he is doing is cementing himself as the minister for cost blowouts and broken promises.

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