The German Government has supplied Enertrag with a Letter of Intent (LOI), concerning the approval of Hyphen Hydrogen Energy’s Namibian project. Hyphen is a joint venture between Enertrag and Nicholas Holdings Limited.

People present at the signing of the LOI, included the German Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Climate Protection, Dr. Robert Habeck, the CEO of Enertrag, Gunar Hering, Namibia’s Minister of Mines and Energy, Tom Alweendo, and finally the Green Hydrogen Commissioner and Economic Advisor to the President of Namibia, James Mnyupe.

The LOI was signed, after the potential of the project was made clear, as the hydrogen venture is expected to annually produce an estimated two million tonnes of green ammonia. It has been recommended through the LOI that the project should be designated as a ‘strategic foreign project’ and that it should be reserved for high-priority global projects of interest to Germany.

Being recognised as a strategic project is an excellent and significant achievement for the hydrogen venture, as it will bring a stream of energy supplies, promote sustainable development, expand trade relationships, and finally, enhance security cooperation.

Along with this recognition the project also recently secured a funding loan worth 5 million euros and it has already been agreed that this money will go towards funding any engineering, environmental, or socio-economic work. Any and all of this work that will need to be performed will occur as the project progresses towards its final investment decision (FID).

The next steps for this project will be to secure further funding and the companies hope that this will come in the form of a capital investment of $10bn. This would help the project reach its full scale by 2030, as the funding would enable the project to power its planned 3GW of electrolysis capacity with 7GW of renewable energy generation.

Habeck commented on the project claiming that ‘Germany wants to support the development of a green hydrogen economy in Namibia, which will be “sustainable for the propulsion through hydrogen and PtX corporation.”’

He also said, ‘that by categorising it as a foreign project, Germany will “provide more support than usual through foreign trade promotion instruments.”’

CEO of Hyphen, Marco Raffinetti, commented that he believes that ‘the LOI reflects the role Namibia will play in “decarbonising heavy industry in Europe,” and also the role Germany has in global decarbonisation.”’

Alweendo added, “Hyphen’s project is the first building block in realising Namibia’s ambitions to incubate a thriving synthetic fuels industry.”