Open Energy Transition

Australia is heavily reliant on imported fuel while, at the same time, having an abundance of solar and wind resources. This creates significant potential for producing and using e-fuels such as e-methanol and e-ammonia as replacements for traditional gas oil and ammonia-based fertilizers, respectively. When produced using clean hydrogen and electricity, both are net-zero in terms of carbon emissions as the CO₂ released during use is captured during production. Investment in local production of synthetic fuel is a way to hedge against the risks of international price volatility, increasing the economic value of fuels by creating local jobs.

This project develops an open, PyPSA-Earth-based model for Australia. Its easy-to-use app provides a graphic user interface to change the required model inputs, and enables users to explore the economic benefits of switching to e-fuels such as e-ammonia and e-methanol in case of oil import price shocks.

Project Overview

Countries

Time horizon

8 weeks

Scenarios

Technologies

Project Aims

Support communication with the Government of Australia to identify potential policy issues from a security of supply perspective especially for eFuels covering green Ammonia and green Methanol

Use PyPSA-Earth to model the eFuel demand of Australia. Within this project, eFuel reflects Ammonia (for use within fertilizers production) and Methanol (for use within diesel replacement).

Prepare a simple Streamlit interface for direct interaction with the model (e.g., capex assumptions, e-fuel share of production)

See the repository

Simple interface to interact with the model (Streamlit)