Hyphen Hydrogen Energy and the Development Bank of Southern Africa partner to fund Sub-Saharan Africa’s Largest Green Hydrogen Project

Namibia, 24 October 2023 – Hyphen Hydrogen Energy (Hyphen) and the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA) today announce plans to enter into a funding facility to be used to progress the development of Hyphen’s landmark green hydrogen project.

The Project Preparation Facility from the DBSA will go towards the partial funding of engineering, environmental and socio-economic development workstreams on the process to developing the project up to final investment decision.

The Hyphen project will have a considerable transformational impact on Namibia and its economy. The total project capital investment of US$10 billion is roughly equivalent to Namibia’s annual GDP. At full scale development, anticipated before the end of this decade, the project will produce 2 million tonnes of green ammonia annually for regional and global markets, and envisages 15,000 employees during the construction phase and 3,000 employees once fully operational.

Marco Raffinetti, CEO of Hyphen Hydrogen Energy, stated that “The Southern Africa region has a crucial role to play in the global green hydrogen race, not only through the leverage of the regions renewable resource, but in the regions participation in the financing of the energy transition. The finalisation of this funding commitment demonstrates the belief of DBSA in the Hyphen project. We look forward to walking the journey with DBSA to financial close, where we hope that both these organisations will be significant providers of debt funding to the project.”

Catherine Koffman, Group Executive Project Preparation at the, DBSA, noted that The green hydrogen economy presents new economic opportunities – new skills, employment, and community opportunities – for Namibia. The development of this new industry will support the longer-term energy security priority and the just energy transition contribution will proactively address socio-economic development. The DBSA recognises the potential of Namibia’s dynamic green hydrogen industry, which is poised to become a beacon of sustainable progress not only for Namibia, but for the entire Southern African region. The Hyphen project, is not only the first Gigawatt-scale project in Namibia, but an example of how we use such projects as catalyst to propel the region towards a greener and more prosperous future.”

 

-ENDS-

Notes to editors:

For media enquiries contact FTI Consulting: HyphenAfrica@fticonsulting.com

About Hyphen

Hyphen Hydrogen Energy Ltd is a Namibian registered green hydrogen development company, specifically formed to develop green hydrogen projects in Namibia for international, regional and domestic supply.  Hyphen is a joint venture between Nicholas Holdings Limited and ENERTRAG SE.

Hyphen’s project is being developed as the first step in the implementation of the Government’s strategy for the development of a large-scale green hydrogen industry in various regions in Namibia to support both economic growth in Namibia and assist the world in achieving its decarbonisation goals. At full scale development, the project will produce 2 million tonnes of green ammonia annually before the end of the decade for regional and global markets, from ~7GW of renewable generation capacity and ~3GW of electrolyser capacity, cutting 5-6 million tonnes (annually) of CO2 emissions, with Namibia’s annual 2021 emissions totalling 4.01 million tonnes[1].

About ENERTRAG SE

ENERTRAG is one of the largest renewable-energy companies in Germany. The company develops, builds, owns and operates utility-scale integrated energy plants that produce reliable electricity and green hydrogen exclusively from wind and sun. ENERTRAG produces 2 Terawatt-hours of electricity per year from 1 Gigawatt of owned assets and has more than 10 Gigawatts of wind, solar and green-hydrogen projects under development in ten countries across the globe.

About Nicholas Holdings Limited

Nicholas Holdings Limited is a strategic investment and infrastructure project developer and operator with a 30-year track record of investment and project development in Africa and Europe, mainly through its subsidiary company, Principle Capital.

About the DBSA

The DBSA is a government-owned development finance institution, established in 1983, with the mandate to promote economic growth as well as regional integration for sustainable development projects and programmes in South Africa, SADC and the wider Sub-Saharan Africa. The DBSA’s primary purpose is to promote economic development and growth, improve the quality of lives of people and promote regional integration through infrastructure, finance and development.

The DBSA mandate focuses the banks underlying policy to play a catalytic role in delivering developmental infrastructure in South Africa and the rest of Africa. More information is available on the website https://www.dbsa.org/about-us

[1] https://ourworldindata.org/co2/country/namibia#what-are-the-country-s-annual-co2-emissions