Green hydrogen project update

This morning our 2019 energy Pick Of The Year, Elixir Energy (ASX: EXR) put out an update on its Gobi green hydrogen project.

Specifically, the update covered the renewable energy and water components required to produce green hydrogen.

Key takeaways for the wind resource data:

• Data collected to date show a 38-39% capacity factor, comparable with some of Australia's top-performing wind projects.
  
• EXR has already installed two new wind resource measurement tools (SODARS) across a ~100km strike to gather more data.

Key takeaways for the water resource:

• EXR drilled three water exploration wells, with one flowing at 0.5 litres per second which is half of what is required for the planned pilot project.
• Interestingly, EXR mentions in the announcement that despite being landlocked, Mongolia's Gobi desert has an abundance of groundwater resources.
• EXR detailed this by referencing the Rio Tino Oyu Tolgoi's copper/gold project, which uses multiples of the amount of water that EXR's green hydrogen project would need.
• More specifically, Oyu Tolgoi is permitted to draw upon ~ 1,000 litres per second of water – around six times more than a multi giga-watt scale green hydrogen project producing 500,000 tonnes of green hydrogen per annum.

To summarise, the data gathered so far looks good enough to take the proposed pilot project into a pre-feasibility study (PFS).

Next, we want to see EXR continue to gather data so that it can clear up the forward plan for what we can expect its green hydrogen project to look like and some clarity on project economics.