Hyphen Hydrogen Energy, which has won two bids to construct Namibia’s inaugural green hydrogen projects, is targeting to produce 1Gigawatts of electricity and create over 32 000 jobs, The Brief can reveal.
Economic Advisor to the President, James Mnyupe announced Hyphen’s winning bids on the sidelines of the Conference of the Parties (COP26) in Glasgow, Scotland on Wednesday.
Below is what we know about Hyphen’s proposal:
- Contract with Hyphen to be signed after a 7 day standstill period to allow objection to bids submitted.
- Create renewable energy generation capacity of 1GigaWatt to be commissioned by December 2025 and this is against Namibia’s current installed capacity of 650 MW.
- Hyphen to pay N$50.340 million in annual concession fees for each site starting the 1st quarter of 2022 , even before generating any revenue.
- N$250.6 million has been earmarked for feasibility studies to be carried out in the next 12 to 18 months, including environmental impact assessments, with 30.6% participation of local companies and SMEs.
- 32 352 full time jobs to be created throughout the 4 year construction period of the project, doubling the employment prospects in the Karas region.
- 20% of the jobs will be made available to the youths as part of conditions given to the developers, with 93% of employees to be Namibians, with average salary set at N$151 941 per annum.
- 2.5% of the annual revenue to be generated to go to the Sovereign Wealth Fund.
Namibia’s green hydrogen initiative is currently premised on the country’s abundant availability of sunlight throughout the year, proximity to billions of cubic meters of seawater and vast marine resources in the Atlantic Ocean and the potential to capture around 10 hours of strong sunlight per day for 300 days per year.
