A green hydrogen project may have cracked the chicken and egg dilemma facing the future fuel with a strategic partner providing seed money for the first floating export hub.
Lack of supply has stymied demand, despite governments worldwide promising billions of dollars to subsidise production, while developers have been wary without customers.
But a Darwin project, comprising three floating units at Channel Island close to the Middle Arm Sustainable Development Precinct, aims to connect Asian fuel-cell vehicle giants with Australian liquid hydrogen that is derived using solar power not coal.
LH2 Energy chair Brian Kitney told AAP a private investor in Europe had joined Japanese, Korean and Australian backers in the project with an undisclosed but "significant" sum.
A capital raise of about US$30 million in 2025 is expected to follow, with the seed money revealed on Monday to support the first-of-its-kind concept.
"We don't need a million-tonne market to develop," Mr Kitney said, eyeing commercial demonstration at a scale of 42,000 tonnes a year.
Already granted a site on the island by the NT government, the project is expected to support the development of a domestic supply chain, including a refuelling terminal for future buses and fuel-cell rubbish trucks.
And because they're aiming to displace diesel and not trying to outgun coal or ammonia in the electricity market, the widely touted $2 per kg figure for commercially viable production does not apply, he said.
A cost of $4 or $5/kg would do, because it would not be subject to excise like diesel, he explained.
Mr Kitney said there was interest from data centres in Singapore to use the fuel, but the focus was a supply chain up to Japan.
He said the new strategic investor would support design and engineering work over the next 12 to 15 months of work, with the first cargo produced in Darwin planned for delivery to the Japanese fuel-cell vehicle market around 2030.
Founded in 2020, Perth-based LH2 has been lining up shipyards, pressurised tanks, governments and wooing automakers for the new supply chain.
Pressurised tank experts Lattice have been working with LH2 and the NT government to progress the export project and a domestic hydrogen hub to power new industries.
A pact for a renewable energy power supply is in place with the Sun Cable solar and battery project proposed for the Northern Territory, with several others as backups.
An extensive two-year concept design was completed in 2023 with Australian and Korean partners, and new vessels are being built at a Chinese shipyard.
