a A$2 billion "Hydrogen Headstart" programme in its budget on Tuesday with the aim of accelerating the production and export of the fuel.
"Competitive hydrogen production contracts are a much-needed market mechanism to provide revenue support for flagship projects, and will help get more and more large hydrogen projects off the ground so we can scale up to gigawatt scale capacity as soon as possible," Fiona Simon, CEO of the Australian Hydrogen Council, said in a statement.
The new measures are a small effort to lure back investors who have flocked to the United States where President Joe Biden's Inflation Reduction Act is offering tax credits for low-carbon hydrogen projects and cheap loans for renewable projects. He said a potential A$300 billion pipeline of Australian green hydrogen projects had been at risk "because of policies internationally like the inflation reduction act."