Hyphen Hydrogen Energy is making significant progress on its discussions with the Namibian Government as it moves towards signature of the Implementation Agreement before the end of the year for its planned $10-B Namibian green H₂ project. Hyphen’s last announcement was at the World Economic Forum in May this year when it laid out an ambitious timeline to realize this project.

During the Namibian Government’s Cabinet meeting on June 12, 2022, Cabinet endorsed the composition and appointment of the Government Negotiations Team assembled to finalize the Implementation 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 this ambitious green H₂ project.

The company has onboarded Boston Consulting Group and Lazard as its international strategic and financial advisors respectively, complementing its existing legal advisory team comprising of Slaughter and May and ENS Africa. Hyphen and its broader advisory team are working closely with the government and its advisors to ensure that Namibia’s potential as one of the top three locations in the world for green H₂ production is realized.

Hyphen is rapidly building its team in Namibia as it looks towards the next phase in the development of the project, with the appointment of five Namibian nationals, including Toni Beukes the new Environment, Sustainability and Governance Leader who will ensure this is an equitable project that benefits the people of Namibia. Hyphen has leased space in Nedbank’s newly completed flagship Courtside office development in the center of Windhoek, to house its growing team with occupation set for early October on completion of the office fitout.

At full scale development, the Hyphen project is expected to produce 350,000 tpy of green H₂ before the end of the decade for regional and global markets, from 5 GW-6 GW of renewable generation capacity and 3 GW of electrolyzer capacity. Hyphen and Government are targeting the commencement of construction in January 2025, with commissioning of the first phase by the end of 2026. The total investment in over both phases is $10 B, roughly the equivalent of Namibia’s annual GDP.

Hyphen’s sister company, Hyphen Technical, together with partners TransNamib, CMB.TECH and the University of Namibia has recently been officially selected to develop a H₂ powered locomotive with two H₂-diesel dual fuel locomotive prototypes with a H₂ fuel tender wagon.  The H₂ locomotive conversion project, at a cost of €7.63 MM, is being part funded by grant funding from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, through the Namibian Government, supported by Southern African Science Centre for Climate Change and Adaptive Land Management. This is intended to act as the first step in the journey of the conversion of TransNamib’s locomotive fleet, that uses 11 MM liters of diesel a year, to ultimately operate on green, carbon-free fuel and demonstrates the commitment by the Namibian Government to develop the entire green H₂ value chain in the country, including H₂ use applications.

Marco Raffinetti, CEO of Hyphen Hydrogen Energy said, “We’re very pleased at the commitment and rapid pace of progress that the Namibian Government has shown as we move towards concluding the Implementation Agreement to enable us to start the next phase of the project. It demonstrates the Government’s belief in Hyphen’s vision and capability to execute this ambitious and transformative project. Our project will put Namibia’s green hydrogen industry firmly on the global energy and decarbonization map and position Namibia for rapid green hydrogen scalability. I would like to thank the Government for their support to date as we move forward together to deliver this important project for the country.