Press conference, Hunter, NSW

ARK CROUDACE, CCO MGA THERMAL: Good morning and welcome my name is Mark Croudace, I'm Chief Commercial Officer for MGA Thermal. I would like to start with acknowledgement of country so we acknowledge the Awabakal and Worimi people who are the traditional custodians of the land where MGA Thermal is located. We pay respects to the elders past, present and emerging and extend that respect to all First Nation Australians, on whose traditional lands we meet and work and whose cultures are the oldest continuing cultures in human history. 

Today marks another milestone in the MGA journey to success. The global energy landscape is changing. The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals involve massive reform of that global energy landscape. Both business and government are rapidly adapting policies and commercial decisions to reflect this and we're pleased and thankful that we're seeing that in last week's announcement. MGA Thermal is ideally placed to help. It enables renewables with high capacity scalable storage. It's applicable to solar, green hydrogen, power station retrofit and industrial heat use cases. And they're all applications that are essential for Australian and global decarbonisation. And MGA is seeing massive inquiry for global use of our storage. However, energy is very much a show-me-it-works. Not a tell-me-it-works industry. And the MGA pilot constructed in this facility is MGA’s next step of commercialisation and will demonstrate the characteristics required for decarbonising, and a renewable energy system, it'll enable process heat and power around the clock. And it's a significant export and employment opportunity for Australia. I'll now pass you through to Erich Kisi, CEO and founder of MGA Thermal.

ERICH KISI, CEO MGA THERMAL: It’s my pleasure to welcome you all to MGA Thermal. I extend particularly warm welcome to Meryl Swanson, the Federal Member for Paterson, who has been a good advocate and friend to MGA since well before we landed in her electorate at the beginning of this year. A special welcome and vote of thanks to Alex Grant, representing the Australian Renewable Energy Agency, and also the companies that provided letters of support. They being Varley Group represented by Jeff Phillips and Kara Frederick. Toshiba represented by Gary Byak and Chris Beacher. And the Australian Solar Thermal Research Institute, represented by Wes Stein who’s among us. And not present today; AGL, Sun Cable and Clemco. Of course, a hearty welcome to the MGA team, without whom none of this would be possible. Colleagues on the 21st of May 2022, the shape of Australian industry and Australian economy and indeed, Australian society changed direction. And a key part of that directional change is the responsibility of our special guest today. It's with great pleasure that I invite the Honourable Chris Bowen, Federal Minister for Climate Change and Energy to address you.

CHRIS BOWEN: Well, thanks very much, Eric. It's great to be here. Today's visit enables me to repeat some of my favourite sayings. The world's climate emergency is Australia's jobs opportunity, and nowhere is that more true than the Hunter, which is powered Australia for so long. And the Hunter will continue to power Australia as we transition to a renewable economy. One of my other favourite sayings is, it's true that the sun doesn't always shine and the wind doesn't always blow, but neither does the rain always fall and we managed to store water and drink water every day. So we can store renewable energy. And there's lots of ways we can store renewable energy. Everybody knows about batteries. Most people know about pumped hydro, many people know about green hydrogen. But there's now a new kid on the block. A new block on the block. A new block on the block with this wonderful technology. And I'm very pleased to announce today on behalf of the federal government and on behalf of ARENA $1.3 million to assist NGA Thermal to take this wonderful project to the next stage. That is to demonstrate the impacts and the potential for NGA Thermal to help Australia and the world store renewable energy for when it's needed. 

And I think the potential and the opportunity is huge, but only if we make it so and we're prepared to do our bit to help you take your good work to the next level. And that's what we're announcing today $1.3 million to help you do that. This will be important, potentially for electricity, important for what we currently call hard to abate sectors, sectors where they are very energy intensive, where electricity is not enough, not hot enough for them to do their work. And there's plenty of examples of that throughout the Hunter, where they make very good things want to reduce your emissions, but it's hard work to reduce emissions. What we want to do is take hard to abate sectors and turn them into easier to abate sectors, and NGA Thermal’s got a big role to play in that activity. So again, this is a great day. It's not the end. It's not anywhere near the end, it's just the beginning for the opportunities for jobs in the Hunter, storing renewable energy and making it available for electricity or for hard to abate sectors whenever they need it. So I look forward to coming back when this entire production line is producing blocks on a very strong basis and sending them around Australia and around the world to help store that renewable energy. I'm going to ask Meryl to add to my comments, and then I'll take questions. Thanks.

MERYL SWANSON: Thank you, Minister, and thank you for being here in the Hunter with us today. It's long been said that the Hunter is the powerhouse of not only New South Wales but also the eastern seaboard of Australia. And I think being here today just puts that point more into focus. We are just taking another step in Australia’s journey. It's because of the power generation and all of the manufacturing, the extractive industry, the coal industry, that we have been able to build up our manufacturing DNA here in the Hunter. What I mean by that is, we have an intergenerational skill set. We have people who have been born into heavy industry into heavy manufacturing, in this region, who have the most incredible nous and know how, of how things work, and how to make things. And I think Eric and his team are a fantastic example of that. Out of University of Newcastle, out of industry itself, this product has been born through people setting their minds to a problem and saying, you know, how do we store heat, and effectively, that's what these blocks are. 

I love Eric's story, when he talks about the MGA blocks being like muffins, when you put a choc chip muffin in a microwave, and you bite into it, the muffin keeps its shape, but the choc chips melt and they usually burn your mouth. Well, that's what happens with one of these blocks. The alloy, the secret alloy, that's in there retains the heat, and we're now able to use that heat to capture that, and really put it on the front of whether it's spinning a turbine, whether it's industrial heat, we can use that heat to help solve the storage problem. We know we've got a long way to go. But when people say, ‘how do we get there’, we can certainly point to industries and to companies like MGA for setting the stepping stones in place for how to get there. And I also just want to acknowledge Jeff Phillips from Varley, they're going to be making the prototype to show people how this will actually work. Not just at a lab desktop, but in a real industrial situation. So Varley has been manufacturing and making things for Australia for many, many years since George first set up that iron workshop down near the harbor. And here we are, again in the Hunter powering Australia, but building things creating the jobs in regional Australia. That's what we promised as the government. And today, that's what we are continuing to deliver. Thanks, everyone.

CHRIS BOWEN: Okay, questions? 

JOURNALIST: The Hunter is obviously undergoing fairly major economic and social transformation as part of the transition to clean energy. How is the government supporting that transition in communities that are going to be affected by the closure of coal fired power stations?

CHRIS BOWEN: Well, by ensuring that five out of the six jobs created by our climate policies are in Australia's regions, none more so than the Hunter. Our policies will create 604,000 jobs between now and 2030. And five out of six of those will be in Australia's regions. And that's what it's all about. And as I said before, and I mean it, I mean every word of it, the regions that have powered Australia for so long, whether it be the Hunter, or the Latrobe, Gippsland, Collie-Bunbury, Gladstone will power Australian to the future. And we will be investing to help create those jobs and to provide the policy certainty for investment. That was the importance of the passage of our legislation through the House last week, 89 votes to 55. Ensuring that it sends the signal to investors in renewable energy in transmission and storage around the world, that Australia is open for business, and that we have one stable policy framework unlike the 22 policies, of the last 10 years, one policy legislated we intend to implement.

JOURNALIST: I was talking to Paul Broad a couple of weeks ago regarding the Hunter power project, with Kurri. He doesn't know whether $700 million will be enough to convert the project to green hydrogen. Do you think it's enough?

CHRIS BOWEN: Yes. And we're working very closely with Snowy as you'd expect to implement our election commitments.

JOURNALIST: When do you expect green hydrogen to be introduced?

CHRIS BOWEN: In line with the election commitment we made, which is to meet best practice, to match best practice around the world. We were very clear 10% by 2030. And then best practice to get as high as possible as quickly as possible.

JOURNALIST: Mr. Bowen, we’re a stone's throw away from the large Tomago Aluminium Smelter. How will the government safeguard mechanism affect operations on plants such as that one?

CHRIS BOWEN: Well, I'll be visiting the smelter this afternoon. Looking forward to it. I'll be talking to them no doubt about our policies, as I publicly said elsewhere. I'm releasing a discussion paper about the impacts and detailed operation of the safeguard reforms shortly. Our policy is very clear there's lots of detail within that policy, which I'm genuinely consulting upon. I expect Tomago will put in a submission as I expect other Hunter employers will as well about some of that finer detail. But again, the safeguards mechanism reforms that we are implementing, suggested by the Business Council of Australia supported by the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and supported by the Australian industry group. Why? To provide that policy certainty for people just like Tomago, so that they can make their investment decisions and their transition decisions in a very stable policy setting. That's what our 43% legislative target will do. That's what our safeguard reforms will do as well.

JOURNALIST: A plant the scale of that, is it the canary in the coal mine as far as emissions and costs?

CHRIS BOWEN: They’re not terms I would use, it's an opportunity. Australia will continue to make things and we'll make more things as we transition to an 82% renewable economy.

JOURNALIST: Last week, you announced a significant step in the development of the wind offshore industry, including the Hunter. When can we expect to see consultation on the offshore wind in the Hunter?

CHRIS BOWEN: It was a very important announcement I made last week, next steps in our development of an offshore wind industry. We are way behind the international game on offshore wind. Offshore wind is jobs rich and energy rich and its jobs rich for the Hunter, there will be a lot of jobs created. In terms of the six zones, I announced Gippsland is first. It is the most advanced and have signed the instrument, beginning the official 60 days of public consultation for Gippsland. The other five zones are not as well advanced. But I anticipate Hunter will be the second zone for which I begin the formal public consultation when the consultation on Gippsland has been completed and processed.

JOURNALIST: When do you expect that will be?

CHRIS BOWEN: I'm not going to announce a date today. When it's ready to go; not a day later, not a day before. 

JOURNALIST: It's a relatively new technology in a region like the Hunter. Do you think the community awareness of the potential of offshore wind is where it needs to be?

CHRIS BOWEN: Not yet, we've got work to do to explain the benefits of offshore wind. There are issues that need to be worked through and that's what the public consultation is for. So we'll be consulting with commercial and recreational fishers, with environmental groups, with business groups as part of that process. I point to Gippsland as an example of what is possible, where there is very, very strong community support for offshore wind. Because Gippsland is going through a huge economic change just like the Hunter, even more so perhaps, and Gippsland is at the forefront of that change, the jobs changing. Offshore wind is a jobs reach opportunity. Why? Because the turbines 10 or 12 or 15 kilometres off our coast move very fast. And it’s very windy, therefore, they need a lot of maintenance. And guess what, you can't just wander out to one. You need ships to take the workers out, you need a port to support the ships. So there's a lot of jobs to be created in the maintenance of the turbines, in the support for that maintenance, as well as it being very energy rich. The Star of the South proposal for Gippsland, for example, which is the most advanced proposal in the country. Will, when it's operating, generate 20% of Victoria's energy needs. One wind farm providing 20% of Victoria's energy. 1.2 million homes that one wind farm off the coast of Gippsland will power. Now, when we have similar off the Hunter of the Illawarra and off the other zones that I've announced that'll be very important for Australia's energy mix in our transition to 82%. renewables and beyond. And also very important for new jobs.

JOURNALIST: This might be an operational question, but where does the feedstock come for the MGA Thermal products?

ERICH KISI: Currently, we're using a mix of new feedstock and recycled products. So the metal particles are largely being made from recycled product and the black stuff, the matrix, is using new feed.

JOURNALIST: With the proximity of the Tomago Aluminium Smelter and visit later today. Is there a connection there with, you know, materials from the smelter?

ERICH KISI: Yes, we're in discussion about the possibility of supplying some of our needs for the metals in the blocks.

JOURNALIST: Would that, down the track, affect some of the offset targets as well for an operation such as that?

ERICH KISI: I'm not really across that. Well, I suspect it would, but I'm not really across that.

JOURNALIST: Just for the average person. Can you simply explain what this actually does?

ERICH KISI: So this is a pilot, five megawatt hours of storage. And inside are our thermal energy storage blocks, there's an example there. It accepts energy in the form of electricity renewably generated electricity, ultimately, that heats up the blocks. And they sit at around 600 degrees Celsius, storing heat almost indefinitely. It loses very little heat over time. And then the energy dispatched by making steam, high temperature, high pressure steam for power generation, or we can derate it to address the harder abate markets like process heat in industry.

JOURNALIST: And where are you sort of out at the moment?

ERICH KISI: We've handed the detailed design over to the manufacturer. They've now working on procuring the raw materials to construct the red box, if you like. All of the major other components have been ordered, and we're just awaiting them arriving. Some of them are sitting at the back there. It will actually be built up there in front of those massive hangar doors. It will be commissioning in December of this year.

JOURNALIST: The transfer of the steam power, does that mean it has to be you know, [indistinct]

ERICH KISI: It has to be close to the end use, yes. It doesn't have to be close to the electricity source. So you can transmit electricity across the grid to it. But if you're using it for power, you would build either a purpose built power station at the site, or you can use it to retrofit existing power stations.

JOURNALIST: Could this possibly represent a hub for associated industries in this area?

ERICH KISI: It's a hub for demonstrating thermal energy storage. Yes, definitely. The scale at five megawatt hours is a bit of a sweet spot. It's not a toy. It's industrial scale. It's already at a scale where it can form a product for some users. However, it can be scaled up many hundreds of times bigger.

JOURNALIST: The former federal government announced $100 million in the March budget for the establishment of hydrogen infrastructure at the Port of Newcastle, can you confirm that money?

CHRIS BOWEN: We're big supporters of the hydrogen industry obviously. As you'd expect with the new government, we are assessing all the commitments made by the previous government and we'll have more to say in a budget context in October. But having said that, we are big supporters of the development of the hydrogen industry. Okay, thanks.

ENDS