The development of a Guarantee of Origin (GO) scheme was announced as part of the National Hydrogen Strategy in November 2019. The GO scheme is part of achieving the vision for a clean, innovative, safe and competitive hydrogen industry that benefits all Australians. It will help meet the goal in the Strategy of being a major global player by 2030.

The National Hydrogen Strategy stated that Australia should seek to be a leader in developing an international scheme and any domestic scheme should build on or harmonise with international schemes. An initial scheme could be developed that verifies and tracks:

• production technology
• carbon emissions associated with production (scope 1 and scope 2)
• production location.

The scheme could be expanded over time to include attributes such as water consumption and other factors.

Consultation on initial scheme design was undertaken in 2021 with submissions and a response available: A Hydrogen Guarantee of Origin scheme for Australia. Following this consultation, the Clean Energy Regulator (CER) was chosen and funded to run the trials of a hydrogen GO scheme.

The GO trials will engage participants on practical application of methodologies and design parameters.

Effective, collaborative co-design with industry, potential end-users, and other significant stakeholders during the trial will improve usability and remove barriers to participation in a future GO scheme.

Participation in the GO trial involves taking part in trial workshops, run by the agency and supported by the Department. The workshops provide a collaborative space for stakeholders involved in hydrogen production and in the hydrogen supply chain to discuss and co-design principles that should be considered for a successful future GO scheme.

There are two main phases to the GO trials. Phase one from March to July 2022 and phase two from July to June 2023.

In phase one the GO trial will be working with 2 categories of stakeholders.

Group One: trial participants

Find out more about the projects.

Group Two: broader stakeholder group

Peak bodies and industry groups with an interest in the trials, international hydrogen groups, state government representatives, Australian Government agencies and project developers.

This group will receive reports on the discussions and progress of the trial with feedback sought on some issues relating to the operation of the overall scheme.

Session name

1. Introduction
2. Boundary, metering and measurement
3. Data collection
4. Co-products
5. GO registry design
6. Compliance frameworks, calculator and scope 2 emissions