Hydrogen Jobs Plan

The Government of South Australia committed more than half a billion dollars to the Hydrogen Jobs Plan to build a world leading hydrogen power plant, electrolyser and storage facility near Whyalla, by early 2026. To ensure the committed outputs and complex requirements are delivered within the ambitious timeframes and within budget, OHPSA required the services of professional multi-disciplinary engineering consultancies to provide technical and engineering assurance and oversight across the delivery of the project.

GPA was engaged in the role of Owners Engineer to provide professional multi-disciplinary engineering consultancy and advisory services.

The project involved:

• Power supply comprised of excess renewable energy from the grid for hydrogen production
• 250 MW of electrolysers – some of the world’s largest that will create hydrogen from water using renewable energy
• 200 MW hydrogen fuelled peaking power station (combined cycle hydrogen gas turbines) to provide grid firming services
• Hydrogen supply to other potential users at locations in proximity to the plant (i.e. Port Bonython export hub, Whyalla steelworks)
• Hydrogen compression and storage of 100 tonnes of renewable hydrogen for industry offtake and grid-firming via dispatchable power generation
• Gas, water, power, accommodation and other infrastructure and service connections to the facility

In February 2025 the South Australian Government decided to defer the project due to the need for funding to be directed to supporting the embattled Whyalla steelworks, to which the state and federal government committed over $2 Billion in support.

GPA remains engaged by OHPSA to finalise technical elements of the HJP development and facilitate a series of lessons learned workshops to capture key findings from the project. GPA’s support to South Australian Government’s Hydrogen Jobs Plan project provided significant learnings and valuable experience in the progression of large-scale hydrogen developments.