Green hydrogen: a win for SA and the world

Global green hydrogen demand is set to increase sevenfold by 2050. With South Africa possessing all the ingredients to make and export hydrogen, the country could become a major world player, with benefits even extending to farmers.

- Lindi Botha

The Netherlands’ coastline is a cool and windy place on the best of days. It’s hardly the kind of beach destination South Africans are used to, but it does have monumental benefits: wind power generation. The Dutch have certainly capitalised on this gift from nature, and wind turbines span across the ocean as far as the eye can see. But it’s not enough.

Shortly after the Russians declared war on Ukraine, the EU shunned Russian gas. The urgency to reduce carbon emissions has also driven the continent to seek more green energy, with the Netherlands shutting down their own gas fields last year. Erecting enough wind turbines across the North Sea to meet their green energy requirements, and transforming the mostly gas suited energy infrastructure, could take up to 10 years to establish, and come at a considerable cost.

Green hydrogen poses an ideal solution, but only if they can procure enough of it. Green hydrogen is produced by using renewable electricity in an electrolyser to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. The Dutch’s attention has therefore shifted south, where sunshine is abundant, and South Africa’s west coast presents an ideal location for using desalinated water and solar energy to produce hydrogen, which can then be exported through purpose-built ports. Should investment in green hydrogen production in South Africa materialise, and the country does indeed become the hydrogen powerhouse it is realising it could be, benefits to African and European economies will be plentiful.