RURAL community leaders are closely watching advances in hydrogen technology and what it could mean for the development of green hydrogen production industries in regional Australia.
Chief executive of the Wimmera Development Association (WDA) Chris Sounness said the potential for hydrogen was two-fold.
"We're looking into opportunities with not only energy but also fertiliser," Mr Sounness said.
"Hydrogen can be produced then converted into ammonia and once you've got that you can look at what you could do on the fertiliser front," he said.
The hydrogen-rich ammonia would not just be used as fertiliser, it could be a solution to the issues with moving hydrogen to be used for energy.
Moving pure hydrogen can be difficult and would most likely require super freezers to move it as a liquid, but there is already an established ammonia transport network.
The ammonia could be transported and then relatively easily reformed back into hydrogen at its destination.
Mr Sounness said the clean energy production potential of regional Australia made it a clear candidate for the development of hydrogen-based industries.
"We've got significant solar and wind energy projects in this area and using these to help create clean hydrogen could really be beneficial to regional Australia."
He said the process of producing hydrogen was relatively simple with sufficient energy.
Hydrogen is a major element in water and can be separated via the electrolysis process where the hydrogen and oxygen are split.
So far, several Australian hydrogen projects have been planned, in places such as Whyalla, the Pilbara and Gladstone in Queensland, primarily using the natural gas industries in place in those locations to make the so-called blue hydrogen,
But Mr Sounness said he felt creating green hydrogen from a sustainable energy source was going to lead to an in-demand product.
Already countries such as Japan and South Korea, less able to set up renewable energy plants, have nominated clean hydrogen as a key component of their plants to meet their climate commitments.
Hydrogen may also play a role in helping creating energy security in more remove parts of the country, given the electrolysis process can be done relatively easily on a small scale using renewable energy, supporting those intermittent inputs such as wind and solar by supplying needs when they are not feeding into the grid.
There is also the possibility of converting out of fossil fuel run machinery into hydrogen power vehicles, although there will also be competition in that space from electric vehicles as well.