News

Future Fuels CRC completes 7 years of ground-breaking research

July 2, 2025

After seven years and 118 highly successful renewable gas research projects, Future Fuels CRC has completed our Commonwealth supported term. This marks a major milestone of achievement and also an emotional one for many of us involved in this visionary effort for well over 8 years from initial conception and the 2017 competitive bid. It really has been a massive team effort and now rests as a stand-out example of an industry-led outcomes-focused CRC, which didn’t just talk but authenticity lived collaboration, to achieve far more than any one of our groups could have every achieved alone.  

I’d like to thank everyone for their support. Future Fuels CRC will now continue to share our research over the next four months as we move into the wind-up phase. We will hold more webinars, complete our Roadshow series in Adelaide and Melbourne, and deliver the final transfers, reporting and closure tasks. 

But the pipeline industry never stops looking forward, and Gas Infrastructure Research Australia (GIRA), the industry’s new collaborative research organisation is now in the start-up phase, and you will hear much more later this year. We will transfer all our knowledge and relationships as we hand-over the baton to GIRA and I’d like to congratulate the new GIRA team, Stevan Green – Managing Director and Doug Proud – Research Manager. 

Seven years of achievement by our Future Fuels CRC community, involving over 80 Australian energy companies, six state governments and six of Australia’s leading universities have been a vital part of:   

  • Enabling real-world demonstrations and scaling of hydrogen blending into existing gas pipelines in Australia – including AGIG’s Hyp SA, Hyp Gladstone, Hyp Murray Valley, ATCO’s in southern Perth and the Jemena Western Sydney Green Gas project. 
  • Creation and dissemination of the Hydrogen Pipeline Systems Code of Practice (HPS-CoP) to the wider industry and internationally, helping establish Australia at the forefront of hydrogen pipeline systems development. 
  • Establishing HyResource with CSIRO and the Australian Hydrogen Council, that publishes a comprehensive listing and description of hydrogen-related infrastructure projects and policy developments in all key Australian jurisdictions (federal, state and territory). 
  • Partnering in the Net Zero Australia modelling project that illustrated clear whole of economy scenarios, including the need to plan for the transmission of future fuels in various forms, incorporating over 20,000kms of new pipelines to transport the hydrogen, biomethane, water and carbon dioxide necessary to achieve net zero. 
  • Developing the techno-economic modelling required to understand the value of large-scale hydrogen in a fully renewable energy system. This is especially important for understanding the true competitive options for genuine Long Duration Energy Storage (LDES) at scale. 
  • Development of a techno-economic tool that allows a wide range of factors affecting the levelised cost of energy (LCOE) of biomethane projects to be varied to explore how economic viability can be achieved. 
  • Innovative social research, made publicly available on our website, including citizen’s panels, which can enable decision-makers in industry and government to become more aware of what the public prioritises and values in relation to future fuels solutions.  
  • A research roadmap progressed by CSIRO, AEMO and the Global Power System Transformation (G-PST) consortium cited our techno-economic modelling that highlights cost effectiveness of hydrogen pipelines compared to electricity transmission – a significant acknowledgement of the capability developed.   
  • Developed three commercialisation opportunities for products directly relevant to our participants and the future fuels industry including Smart Signs for continuous easement interference monitoring, Dynamic Corrosion control technology, and Retrofitting Pipelines with in-situ coating. 

Future Fuels CRC also established world-leading lab testing facilities and capabilities to assess the ability of existing pipeline materials and components to cost-effectively transport a range of future fuels, including hydrogen and biomethane: 

  • Pressurised hydrogen laboratory testing undertaken in the H2SAFE(TI) Lab at the University of Wollongong provided the basis for APA’s ASX announcement confirming the technical feasibility of converting a 43km section of the Parmelia Gas Pipeline in WA to carry 100% hydrogen, an Australian first.  
  • Our sand-pit test bed facilities at Deakin University have proved the reliable technical knowledge needed to support hydrogen’s use in existing plastics networks across Australia. 

A big part of our role is also to develop the engineers and specialists of tomorrow, creating renewable gas’s future workforce. During Future Fuels CRC we have developed 41 PhD students, 12 Masters Students and 2 Honours Students, which is an outstanding achievement in our relatively short seven-year term. Our undergraduate ‘Hackathons’ have grown from a single event in 2021, to a partnership with IChemE that has engaged 500 engineering students from 12 universities across Australia and New Zealand and will continue into the future. 3,000 undergraduate students have completed our RMIT’s Bachelor of Business capstone project course as part of their management training. All these students will now enter their careers with a deeper understand of the potential for renewable gases. 

This level of achievement is only possible through the collaboration of our wide community of participants. I would like to thank all our participates from across industry, government and research. I also want to recognise and thank our international collaborators the Pipeline Research Council International (USA), European Pipeline Research Group (EU) and European Gas Research Group (EU). Our team also has long-running relationships with academics and operational companies across the global to share research and better understand industry needs, to support the energy transition with renewable gases.  

It takes real people to make this all happen and there have been too many individual contributions to be able to mention everyone justified in this short note. However, a special mention to everyone in this broad community that has stepped-up to play any part in an idea, a problem or an opportunity through a role in a project, a steering committee, a working group, a board role or any of our seminars, webinars and other events. Collaboration of this scale requires everyone moving slightly outside of their traditional comfort zones and this is acknowledged and appreciated. I really hope you’ve enjoyed the experience, and it has inspired you to achieve more.  

Our passionate and dedicated Board has been fundamental to our long-term success. The fact that many directors have been with the CRC from the start shows their interest and drive to make a difference. I acknowledge the unwavering leadership and dedication of Charles Rottier as Chairman and thank him for his continual commitment, mentoring and daily support. I thank all our directors; Lucia Cade, Kate Spargo, Anton Middleberg, Shaun Coffey, Gabrielle Sycamore, Dennis Van Puyvelde, Peter Cox and Mark Beech. 

And finally, a call-out to my small, dedicated team. Special mention to Shaun Coffey, Neil Fawcett, George Whittaker, Jeremy Harris, Carol Bond, Doug Proud and Benjy Lee, and the previous crucial contributions from Klaas van Alphen, Peter Grubnic, Robert Newton, Fari Mahdavi, Antonella Banno, Fariba Ramezani, Stephen McGrail, David Paterno, Margaret Gayen and Nick Kastelein. 

I thank you all for what we’ve already achieved and look forward to many future achievements with GIRA. This industry has a far larger role than most anticipate in the realistic energy transition ahead and I know this proactive community will unlock those opportunities. Please don’t stop pushing forward, as the world is just starting to realise the need and role of clean molecules and our efforts have positioned us well for this tremendous opportunity. Most importantly the people, connections and relationships forged in Future Fuels CRC should give us all great confidence that we have the people, skills and young leaders ready to drive the next phase of our industry. 

David 

 

David Norman, CEO Future Fuels CRC