Name of the Project
Hyphen Hydrogen Energy.

Location
Tsau //Khaeb National Park, near Luderitz, in Namibia.

Project Owner/s
Hyphen Hydrogen Energy has been appointed as the preferred bidder to develop the project. It will operate the project for a 40-year period, following the conclusion of the feasibility study and sign-off from the Namibian government.

Hyphen is a Namibian-registered green hydrogen development company, specifically formed to develop green hydrogen projects in Namibia for international, regional and domestic supply.

Hyphen’s shareholders are Nicholas Holdings, a strategic investment and infrastructure project developer, and renewable-energy company ENERTRAG.

Project Description
The development of Namibia’s first large-scale vertically integrated green hydrogen project will be completed in phases.

Phase 1 will create 2 GW of renewable electricity generation capacity to produce green hydrogen for conversion into green ammonia. This phase aims to produce 120 000 t/y of green hydrogen, to be further processed into 700 000 t/y of green ammonia for export to Europe.

After Phase 2, the Hyphen project will have solar and wind electricity generation capacity of 5 GW, and 3 GW of electrolysis, which will yield about 300 000 t/y of hydrogen, which translates into 1.7-million tons of green ammonia.

The project is expected to displace five- to six-million tonnes a year of carbon dioxide emissions.

Potential Job Creation
About 15 000 construction jobs will be created during the four-year construction period, with an estimated 3 000 permanent jobs being employed once the project is fully developed. More than 90% of these jobs are expected to be filled by Namibians.

Government’s GH2 strategy, which envisages up to 50 equivalently sized projects as Hyphen’s, may result in 200 000 permanent jobs in wind and solar, excluding the downstream and upstream industries included in government’s plans.

Capital Expenditure
The first phase of the project will cost $4.5-billion; Phase 2 will cost $9.5-billion.

Planned Start/End Date
Following the conclusion of the necessary contractual arrangements with government, Hyphen will complete all the necessary feasibility, engineering and permitting processes to allow for construction to start in January 2025, with commissioning of the first phase expected by the end of 2026.

The project is expected to produce two-million tonnes a year of green ammonia by 2029.

Latest Developments
Following the finalisation of agreements to establish SDG Namibia One, the Namibia government has confirmed that it will take a 24% equity stake in the project, the investment value of which is almost equivalent to the country’s gross domestic product.

SDG Namibia One is a blended financing infrastructure fund that will raise money from local and international investors to develop Namibian green hydrogen projects.

The fund’s establishment will also result in Namibia’s Environment Investment Fund partnering with two Dutch organisations – Climate Fund Managers and Invest International – in the creation of NH2 Fund Managers, as the fund manager of SDG Namibia One.

An initial €40-million is being provided as grant funding by Invest International.

The European Investment Bank concluded a letter of intent with Namibia at COP27 for the raising of €500-million in November 2022, a portion of which will be designated for investment through SDG Namibia One.

Green hydrogen also featured strongly during the joint visit to Namibia on June 19 this year by Netherlands Prime Minister Mark Rutte and Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen.

Rutte and Frederiksen subsequently travelled to South Africa, where President Cyril Ramaphosa announced that a $1-billion SA-H2 Fund, which is being seeded by an initial $250-million from Invest International of the Netherlands, was being established to mobilise green hydrogen investments.

Meanwhile,  Hyphen Hydrogen Energy, which is developing the Namibian projects, also announced that a memorandum of understanding (MoU) had been signed with Namibia, NamPort, NamPower, the Port of Rotterdam, Gasunie and Invest International, committing the partners to work together on designing the infrastructure required to deliver on Namibia’s green hydrogen production ambitions.

The MoU builds on the existing relationship between NamPort, the  Port of Rotterdam and Hyphen in the development of the new masterplan for the Port of Lüderitz, while NamPower and Hyphen are investigating the possibility of supplying excess electricity generated by the project to NamPower.

Key Contracts, Suppliers and Consultants
None stated.

Contact Details for Project Information
Hyphen Energy, email info@hyphenafrica.com