Elixir Energy Limited provided an update on its Gobi H2 green hydrogen project in Southern Mongolia. Elixir first deployed SODAR equipment to measure wind resources to a bankable standard over a year ago. A first annual report from local renewable energy consulting company, EBN Energy Trade LLC (EBN Energy), who manage the data collection and interpretation from the SODAR, has recently been provided to the Company.

Based on the first year's full data set, a capacity factor of 38-39% (at a hub height of 80 metres) has been determined. To put this into context, this would place a wind-farm on this site firmly in the top quartile of operating wind-farms in Australia (which is itself one of the strongest wind power locations in the world), as measured by Rystad Energy. EBN Energy are currently installing 2 new SODARS in locations in the Gobi region.

The deployment strategy is designed to gather both site specific data and also establish regionally relevant information along an extensive > 100 kilometre "strike" line adjacent to infrastructure and water resources. Last year Elixir acquired the pre-development Solar Ilch project in the Gobi region and has since installed Australian sourced solar monitoring equipment thereon. To date the data garnered is in line with expectations for the latitude and Mongolia's very clear skies.

Notwithstanding its cool continental climate, the South of Mongolia is in fact on the same latitude as the North of Spain and its solar potential (greatly assisted by its lack of precipitation and clear skies) is accordingly strong. After renewable sourced electricity, water is the key input required for the production of green hydrogen. Although the Gobi region is an arid one, there are substantial sources of groundwater in the region, as demonstrated by the usage at large scale mines such as the Rio Tinto operated Oyu Tolgoi copper/gold mine.

The volumes of water required for a multi gigawatt scale green hydrogen project that Gobi H2 has the potential to become are substantially less than currently used in such mining operations. Irrespective of this, the Company seeks to demonstrate to local communities (and other national stakeholders) that new sources of ground water (i.e. ones not currently being used for purposes such as feeding livestock) can be established. If such sources are too saline for agricultural usage, then that gives rise to only an immaterial additional cost for green hydrogen production, but is then not a source that the local stakeholders would otherwise use.

Elixir has recently drilled three water exploration wells in the Gobi. One established a flow rate of 0.5 litres per second ­ around half that required for the planned pilot project. It is accordingly Elixir's view that it has started to demonstrate that new sources of water can readily be found (at modest cost).

Further water exploration wells will be drilled later this year once location(s) for the proposed pilot production plant have been finalized with partner SB Energy. On a regular basis Oyu Tolgoi commissions an independent (and public) audit report into its water usage. The most recent report was issued in January this year: The report notes Oyu Tolgoi is permitted to draw upon 1,000 litres per second of water ­ around 6 times more than a multi giga-watt scale green hydrogen project producing 500,000 tonnes of green hydrogen per annum.

No sustained draw-down of ground water resources or other environmental concerns were identified.