Namibia expects to ship its first green ammonia exports to Germany in 2026, from an identified country export volume potential of 3.5 million tonnes by 2030.
According to Presidential Economic Advisor and Green Hydrogen Commissioner James Mnyupe, Germany and Namibia have “defined the further steps of cooperation to unlock and support this ambition.”
The discussions were held during a Business Round Table jointly initiated by the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology (BMWK) and Namibia’s Ministry of Mines and Energy, which brought together Namibian producers and German off-takers.
The main objective of the gathering was to begin to increase visibility between prospective commercial German off-takers for clean Namibian molecules and the supply potential that sits within Namibia’s //Kharas Region.
“This is an important milestone to promote the trade of green hydrogen and Power-to-X products between the partner countries and to create investment security. A real win-win situation,” said Rainer Baake, the Special Energy envoy from the BMWK.
The announcement comes as Hyphen Hydrogen Energy, a joint venture between Nicholas Holdings of the UK and ENERTRAG of Germany, which was selected as the preferred bidder for the country’s first green hydrogen project in November 2021, expects the Namibian government to sign off its planned N$170-billion project before year end.
The signing of the Implementation Agreement will trigger the commencement of the front-end engineering and design phase in the development of the project that will be constructed over two phases with the eventual goal of producing 350 000 t/y of green hydrogen from 5GW to 6GW of renewable generation capacity and a 3GW electrolyser.
Namibia, currently in discussions with the European Commission to mobilise concessionary multilateral funding from the European Investment Bank to implement its green hydrogen projects, has so far received N$800 million (€40 million) from Germany, the biggest received so far, which is being used for pilot projects to help German and local entrepreneurs get a soft start at new industries.