President Hage Geingob says the implementation agreement for the planned N$170-billion Hyphen Hydrogen Energy project is expected to commence in the first quarter of this year, 2023.
“The Government’s negotiations with Hyphen have proceeded well and the implementation agreement is expected to commence in the first quarter of 2023, preceded by a feasibility study reported to be in the amount of N$2.4 billion,” President Geingob said in his 2023 New Year’s message.
This comes as Hyphen last year August had expressed optimism that the Implementation Agreement for the project will be signed off by the Namibian government before the year ends after Cabinet had endorsed the composition and appointment of the Government Negotiations Team assembled to finalise the agreement as well as the proposed timeline of its signature.
The signing of the Implementation Agreement will trigger the commencement of the front-end engineering and design phase in the development of the project.
Geingob said Green Hydrogen agreements signed and the foreign direct investment mobilised in 2022, bode well for 2023.
“Once funding gets deployed, jobs will be created, construction activity will commence and the plans we have so carefully laid out in this year will begin to bear fruit,” he said.
Adding that Namibia received pledges in grants valued at over N$1.52 billion, to start developing a world-class synthetic fuels industry through construction of 10 various Green Hydrogen-related projects in the Erongo and //Kharas regions, starting as early as this year.
The President’s announcement, comes as Germany is said to be considering providing aid for the Hyphen project, through its state-backed development bank KfW.
Hyphen Hydrogen Energy, a joint venture between Nicholas Holdings of the UK and ENERTRAG of Germany, was selected as the preferred bidder for the country’s first green hydrogen project in November 2021.
The project will be constructed over two phases with the eventual goal of producing 350,000 tonnes per year of green hydrogen from 5GW to 6GW of renewable generation capacity and a 3GW electrolyser.
Meanwhile, Namibia’s Green Hydrogen and Derivatives Strategy estimates that up to US$190 billion will be required by 2040 to implement plans of becoming Africa’s first green hydrogen producer and supplier.
