Hydrogen Headstart Program

Policy Engagement Overview

InfluenceMap analysis indicates there has been broad corporate support for the Hydrogen Headstart Program. A total of 12 companies and industry associations in InfluenceMap’s database submitted a response to the consultation. Of the respondents, 5 (41.7%) engaged positively and 3 (25%) engaged negatively. The other 4 respondents (33.3%) engaged with mixed or unclear positions on the policy.

Policy Engagement Trends

• Support for the program was led by entities including Australian Industry Group (Ai Group), Engie, Australian Hydrogen Council and Iberdrola. The Australian Hydrogen Council strongly supported the policy including additionality and time matching criteria and advocated for the minimum deployment size to be raised to increase ambition. The organization also advocated for the timelines in the policy to be accelerated.

• Both Engie and Iberdrola also supported the inclusion of additionality as well as defined end-use cases. Engie supported annual matching, while Iberdrola did not appear to support mandatory temporal correlation. Ai Group supported the technology-specific focus of renewable hydrogen in the Headstart Program but generally appealed for technology neutral policy elsewhere to allow for other forms of hydrogen, such as fossil based or bioderived with carbon capture, to enable lower costs.

• Opposition to the Hydrogen Headstart Program was led by entities including Australian Energy Producers, Glencore, and Siemens Energy. Siemens did not appear to support the inclusion of any additionality or time correlation measures and did not support excluding certain sectors. However, it did support the inclusion of a guarantee of origin scheme. Glencore supported the inclusion of additionality and temporal and geographical correlation measure but opposed the proposed eligibility criteria and appeared to advocate for the inclusion of gas blending.

• The Australian Energy Producers appeared to strongly oppose the program. The organization advocated for a technology neutral approach that includes hydrogen produced from fossil fuels. This was a much more negative position than its member BP which took a mixed position on the policy, supporting a more ambitious timeline and a guarantee of origin scheme, but not supporting additionality or temporal correlation requirements to be included in the policy.

Impacts on Policy Ambition

The government released the finalized guidelines for the Hydrogen Headstart program in October 2023. The final guidelines retained the requirement for additionality and for the entire hydrogen production process to be from electrolysis and 100% powered by renewable energy. There was also no change to the eligible end uses and no sectors have been excluded. The finalized policy does not appear to have been impacted by companies and industry associations advocating for a technology neutral approach or the inclusion of fossil fuels.