In light of the loud voices calling for environmental and climate protection, green hydrogen projects emerged, and experts quickly flocked to show its merits and advantages. Egypt led the way in the African continent by establishing a huge factory worth one and a half billion pounds.

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Edited by | Anna Sam

Exclusive section

25 March 2023 - Cairo

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    On the way, investment in green hydrogen attracted the attention of African countries such as Morocco and Mauritania, who concluded agreements with Egypt so that the African continent would be a source of global investments in green hydrogen.
Analysts and experts followed the signs of the rapid transition in the African continent to investment in hydrogen projects, which has become an urgent area given the great interest by governments and companies in this resource, as one of the steps to consolidate the foundations of the green economy.

African countries have set their sights on attracting investors wishing to develop hydrogen projects, hoping to develop an emerging industry that has become heavily bet on during the last period to support the infrastructure of the sector and to be a key to diversifying a clean economy in the future.

New fuels as a promising alternative to fossil fuels, in the struggle, to meet the world's growing energy needs, while limiting the repercussions of the worsening climate change catastrophe.

Experts take a cautiously optimistic stance, although many of them also warn that pinning all human hopes on this relatively new technology does not take into account the drawbacks of green hydrogen.

Among these drawbacks are cost and less efficient energy production, along with the potential for catastrophic hydrogen leakage.

However, interest in green hydrogen is growing, as it is an essential source of energy that contributes to the transition to renewable energy, as it can perform the same tasks as natural gas, but without harmful emissions to the environment.

Green hydrogen is generated by electrolysis using electricity from alternative sources, to separate the water elements, resulting in both hydrogen and oxygen in the process.

"We expect to implement good-value projects in Africa, starting next year, especially in North Africa," Minh Hoy Lee, a hydrogen expert at Oslo-based Restatt Energy Institute, told the German news agency.

In May last year, six countries, Egypt, Kenya, Mauritania, Morocco, Namibia, and South Africa, formed an alliance under the auspices of the United Nations, aiming to produce 500 kilotons of green energy annually.

The Noor project in Mauritania is the largest of the projects that the six countries intend to implement, with a capacity of 10 gigawatts.

It aims to supply Europe with about 600,000 tons of green hydrogen per year, starting from 2030, in partnership with the British Chariot Energy Group and the Dutch port of Notre Dame.

Overall, there are 10 green hydrogen production projects in Africa, each at a different stage of implementation, according to data from analysts at S&P Global, the global financial advisory firm.

There are also nearly 600 renewable energy generating stations already operating in Africa, with a total capacity of 64 thousand.

megawatts. On the other hand, there are plans to establish another 580 stations, with a capacity of 152 megawatts.

All wind and solar power sources are available on the continent, says Erika Baldsen, an analyst with S&P Global, which represents a "huge opportunity" for Africa.

And she adds, "Africa, as a source of green hydrogen, has the potential to rise to a prominent position on the map, as a low-cost resource for this new energy in the world."

Experts estimate that the export price of green hydrogen, produced in West Africa, for example, is less than two and a half dollars per kilogram, according to the analysis of Solomon Agbo, a physicist at the Jülich Research Center of Delft University in the Netherlands.

This estimate is much lower than the production cost in Germany, which is estimated at $3.75 per kilogram.

Agbo, the coordinator of a program for the German government to implement green hydrogen projects in partnership with sub-Saharan countries, explains that a third of the land area in West Africa is suitable for the establishment of photovoltaic plants to generate electricity.

He pointed out that three-quarters of this land is suitable for the establishment of wind power plants, and this area can theoretically produce up to 165,000 terawatts of electricity each year.

This energy can meet the needs of European countries. Germany's hydrogen strategy assumes demand will be between 90 and 110 TWh by 2030.

In addition to wind and sun, water is an essential element in choosing a site for hydrogen production, and the Fraunhofer Institute says that its production needs resources that can be obtained from sources such as rivers, lakes, and groundwater, while the use of seawater requires desalination plants.

This means that project operators must ensure that hydrogen production does not have a negative impact on the local water supply, or lead to conflicts over its use.

In the case of seawater desalination, project implementers need to bear in mind the additional energy required for the desalination process, the potential negative impact on marine ecosystems, and other environmental factors.

The European Union plans to switch to green hydrogen by 2050 and aims to consume 20 million tons of this fuel by 2030.

Under its national hydrogen strategy, the German government has concluded multiple partnerships with Morocco, Namibia, Angola, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and South Africa.

In addition to Morocco, Kenya, South Africa, and Nigeria are in similar stages of green hydrogen production projects.

Egypt plans to establish three hydrogen production projects with participation between the public and private sectors, with a total capacity of 300 megawatts and has signed a memorandum of understanding with the German company Siemens in this field.

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