Green hydrogen to power Africa's path to energy independence

ACCESS to reliable electricity remains a significant challenge across Sub-Saharan Africa, particularly in rural areas.

- JULIEN KARAMBUA

Expanding grid infrastructure is often prohibitively expensive and impractical due to difficult terrain and large distances from urban centres.

As a result, millions of people rely on costly and polluting diesel generators or go without electricity altogether.

Off-grid solar solutions have emerged as a transformative tool in bridging this energy gap.

These decentralised energy systems have improved access to power for households, businesses, healthcare facilities and schools, driving socio-economic development.

However, solar energy is inherently intermittent, dependent on sunlight availability. Energy storage is crucial to ensuring reliability, but traditional battery storage solutions are expensive and require frequent maintenance.

A game-changing solution

Green hydrogen storage offers an innovative and environmentally sustainable solution to the intermittency challenge of solar energy.

When solar panels generate surplus electricity during the day, this energy can be used to split water into hydrogen and oxygen through electrolysis.