The Daures Green Hydrogen Consortium has secured a N$220-million grant from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) to implement a Daures Green Hydrogen Village hydrogen pilot project over an 18-month period.
“Today (Wednesday) we have signed a contract between the Southern African Science Service Centre for Climate Change and Adaptive Land Management (SASSCAL) and Daures Green Hydrogen Village. Daures is the first pilot project on green hydrogen that we are funding. BMBF is the funder that funds all this and it’s providing funding through SASSCAL,” SASSCAL Executive Director Dr Jane Olwoch told The Brief.
“The pilot is one of the phases of a bigger programme that BMBF has in Africa. We started off with the production of Green Hydrogen Atlas and the second phase is the pilots. This is one of the pilots that we have just signed.”
She said if the pilot project is well implemented, then commercial production of Green Hydrogen will actually start.
“The idea is not only to produce green hydrogen, but to export it, especially to Europe, Germany who are actually our partners. They have appreciated the enormous wind, water and solar resources that we have, and what a better country than Namibia to become the first exporter of green hydrogen. So the 12 million euro will be used for the production of green hydrogen, production of ammonia,” said Olwoch.
“There is also a plan to have an agriculture scheme to produce green tomatoes from that whole process. We are really excited. We are going to hit the ground running together with Duaries to ensure that we go through the whole process as in the proposal and at the end of the 18 months we have the ammonia, the green hydrogen and can probably see how the tomatoes are growing. One of the very exciting things for me about Duares is the involvement of communities.”
Daures Green Hydrogen Consortium CEO Jerome Namaseb told The Brief that the funding will allow the project to achieve its goal of producing ammonia and green hydrogen by December 2023.
“Today (Wednesday) is a very special day for the Daures Green Hydrogen Consortium and Daures Green Hydrogen Village. We finally managed to finalise the process of accessing grant funds of which we applied for the implementation of the pilot phase of this project. The importance of this funding is significant, because it will enable the Daures Green Hydrogen Village to work keenly and sternly towards the goal of achieving green ammonia and green hydrogen production by December 2023,” he said.
“The €12 million will be spent on procuring and commissioning the facilities that will produce green ammonia and green hydrogen carbon free agriculture, as well as facilitating research opportunities to be led by the University of Namibia and the University of Stuttgart, and that will be for the full pilot phase. The pilot phase will run for an 18 month period , effective from today (Wednesday) at the end of which we would achieved the objectives of the project as initially submitted.”
The grant comes as the Daures Green Hydrogen Village has signed a non-binding agreement with Zimbabwean ammonium nitrate fertilizer manufacturer, Sable Chemicals, which will see Sable Chemicals taking up to 40,000 tonnes of green ammonia, a key component in its fertilizer manufacturing process.
Phase one, according to the company, will also see the production of 500 tonnes of tomatoes and 600 tonnes of carrots, making it Namibia’s first carbon-free agriculture produce, while creating over 70 sustainable jobs and over 100 temporary jobs during construction.
Phase one launch will take place in March 2023 and will include an official groundbreaking ceremony.
Phase four of the project will result in production of 352,000 tonnes of green ammonia using 1GW worth of renewable energy and a 420MW electrolyzer, while creating over 1,000 sustainable green jobs according to the company.
This comes as Hyphen Hydrogen Energy was appointed preferred bidder by the Namibian government to develop the country’s first green hydrogen project for export and by 2027 the project aims to annually produce 1 million tonnes of green ammonia – a hydrogen derivative.
Another project being developed in the country is the Renewstable® Swakopmund by HDF Energy, which consists of an 85MW solar park and a green hydrogen production unit, with the facility expected to begin commercial operations in 2024.
