South Australia has outlined plans for a 100 per cent renewable hydrogen economy, saying that its enormous wind and solar resources mean there is nowhere else in the world as well positioned to produce, consume and export 100% green hydrogen.

The plan was unveiled at an international hydrogen conference that began in Adelaide on Tuesday, in a state that is already sourcing well over 50 per cent of its electricity needs from wind and solar and which is on track to reach “net 100 per cent renewables” before 2030 and go well beyond that in the following decade.

Just last week, the Germany-Australian Energy Transition Hub talked of “200 per cent renewables” as the most economic and effective plan to provide renewable power for electricity, transport and buildings, and to build an export industry. It seems South Australia will inevitably be the first to get there.

The state’s Liberal government says the hydrogen plan will boost the economy and future jobs opportunities. Renewable hydrogen, driven by the plunging costs of wind and solar and hydrogen electrolyser technology will allow the world to “rethink” ways to generate and store energy, power transport fleets and heat homes, and to provide a huge multi billion dollar export market.

“This initiative fits in perfectly with our plan to help deliver more reliable, more affordable and cleaner energy for our state,” says energy minister Dan van Holst Pellekaan.

“It’s likely that nowhere else in the world is as well positioned as South Australia to produce, consume and export 100% green hydrogen.

“Some of our longest-standing and closest trading partners are signalling that they will need hydrogen to make their energy transitions over coming decades, and we want to make the most of that growth opportunity by becoming a hub for the export of renewable energy.”

Indeed, chief scientist Alan Finkel and his team has been working on an Australian hydrogen strategy, which he will finally get to formally present in late November when the COAG energy ministers meet for the first time this year, although he has been briefing state authorities in recent months.

That document is likely to outline the huge potential of hydrogen in the domestic and export markets, and highlight the possibility of having massive arrays of wind and solar – in the tens of gigawatts – to underpin this transition with cheap renewables. Some private investors, such as those involved in the Asia renewable Energy Hub, are already moving down that path.

They are suggesting a 15GW wind and solar hub in the Pilbara, while others such as Sun Cable in the Northern Territory are looking at a massive 10GW solar array, but to power countries such as Singapore through direct links.

South Australia is not waiting around, keen to tap into the huge investment pipeline of more than 16 gigawatts of new wind and solar projects, and to take advantage of the transition it has already made, having closed down coal power several years ago, and soon to reduce gas generation to a relatively minor role.