Old Holden car plant to drive hydrogen fuel cells business
Hydrogen fuel cell company HDF Energy aims to become a bigger player in the Southern Hemisphere by using part of an old Holden car factory to manufacture 12-metre metal “boxes” containing fuel cells providing electricity.
Deputy chief executive of the French group, Jean-Noel de Charentenay, said the company is examining whether to set up its Australasian base on the former Holden site at Elizabeth in Adelaide’s north to be the manufacturing hub for the Asia-Pacific region.
Jean-Noel de Charentenay, the deputy CEO of French group HDF Energy, in Adelaide for talks to advance his group’s hydrogen fuel cell plans. Roy VanDerVegt
“Australia is a good spot,” he told The Australian Financial Review.
HDF Energy, which is listed on the Paris stock exchange, is part-way through a €20 million ($34 million) investment on converting an abandoned Ford transmission manufacturing factory near Bordeaux in France into its first dedicated hydrogen fuel cell production plant.
The French factory will be up and running by March 2024, in readiness for manufacturing of the modular fuel cells.
HDF Energy, which is listed on the Euronext exchange after an initial public offering in 2021, is in talks with the owner of the Holden site, Melbourne property developer and entrepreneur Ross Pelligra.
It is also vying to be part of a $593 million hydrogen project near Whyalla which is being funded by the South Australian government and championed by Premier Peter Malinauskas as a core economic driver.
The government aims to have a taxpayer-funded 250-megawatt hydrogen production facility, 200-megawatt hydrogen power plant and a hydrogen storage facility up and running in early 2026 at Whyalla, in the state’s north. More than 60 companies put in an
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