WITH abundant sunshine and wind, southern Africa is perfectly positioned to become a global powerhouse in green hydrogen production.
As the world shifts towards cleaner energy sources, Namibia and South Africa provide favourable conditions and are well situated upon one of the world’s central shipping routes to transport the commodity to all corners of the globe.
Not surprisingly, two key projects are already in advanced stages of development in Namibia with the Hyphen Hydrogen Energy and Daures projects well underway and gearing to transform southern Africa into a vital supplier of hydrogen to meet the energy demands of developed nations.
Global pumping solutions provider KSB has identified the vast potential of these types of projects in southern Africa and through its KSB Pumps and Valves subsidiaries in Namibia and South Africa, is investing heavily in bringing the right skills to the region. This type of specialised planning is essential to ensure the success of the hydrogen economy as the process of creating green hydrogen is complex as is the generation of renewable electricity to split water molecules into oxygen and hydrogen through electrolysis.
According to KSB business strategist, Ulrich Stahl the important enabler function of hydrogen is that it makes the transport of renewable energy over long distances possible. Furthermore, transporting Hydrogen as a gas or in liquid condition is challenging. Being a light gas it is difficult to contain and requires compressing and cryogenic freezing to convert it to liquid form. This is prohibitively difficult and has led to techniques where it is converted to ammonia which is a compound of nitrogen and hydrogen. The addition of nitrogen to create ammonia makes it easier to store and transport than pure hydrogen. Once shipped to its destination, it can be converted back into hydrogen, making it a practical and scalable solution for fulfilling global energy needs.
In Namibia the Hyphen Hydrogen Energy project aims to build a massive 3 GW electrolyser facility near Lüderitz with production of green hydrogen set to begin by 2026. At full capacity, it will produce 3 million tonnes of green hydrogen annually. This ambitious project will draw on 6 GW of renewable energy generated from wind and solar power ensuring that the hydrogen it produces is entirely green and emissions-free. The hydrogen will be exported primarily to Europe with Rotterdam allocated as a key destination for energy integration.
For more information: https://www.ksb.com/en-za
