Supplied
The multi-billion dollar Hive Energy Green Ammonia plant being planned for the Coega Special Economic Zone will be supplying over 900 000 tons of Green Ammonia to Japan, Korea, and Europe.
Hive Energy UK said in a statement on Tuesday that a historic Memorandum of Cooperation was concluded between Japan and South Africa that recognises that "South Africa has the capacity and ability to be an internationally competitive producer of hydrogen and green ammonia".
It also said that Japan had committed to helping facilitate international development funding, research, and private sector participation to achieve a sustainable and affordable hydrogen and ammonia supply chain in South Africa.
"The first Japanese investors have now started their due diligence to acquire a substantial stake in Hive's Coega Green Ammonia Project and secure an offtake supply," the statement said.
Hive Energy UK said it was playing the leading development role in Phase 1 of South Africa's $5.8 billion Green Ammonia project at Coega, in Nelson Mandela Bay, to be commissioned in 2028.
"The Hive giga-scale project, with 1 200MW of Electrolysers to extract hydrogen from water, will benefit South Africa in many ways including creating over 20 000 jobs in an area with large unemployment and attracting other new industrial investors".
"Critically, in addition to its own 3.6GW of solar and wind plants, it will enable up to 9GW of other Independent Power Producer renewable energy projects to access the grid, helping to alleviate load shedding while decarbonising the grid, which is currently dominated by coal power generation".
Hive Energy CEO, Giles Redpath, said they have been working on renewable developments in Southern Africa since 2015, and on Green Hydrogen since 2018.
"It is encouraging to see how the South African Government has embraced the new green hydrogen industry," he said.
"The opportunities this creates will enable our Coega green ammonia project to become a world-leading hub. When the production plant is commissioned in 2028, Green ammonia will be shipped from Nelson Mandela Bay to the Far East, and across the world."
Redpath said the project will play a positive role in the partnership between South Africa and Japan as a source of renewable fuel supporting Japan's world-leading decarbonisation plans to power "hard-to-abate industries."
This would include supplying Green Ammonia to substitute coal substitution in power stations and for maritime fuel as a replacement for heavy fuel oil and diesel.
He said Hive is developing eight green hydrogen/ammonia projects globally and once complete, "will have the capacity to produce some 8 500 000 tons of hydrogen/ammonia each year to support the global drive to net-zero emissions by 2050".
