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Diversified mining company Anglo American has signed a binding agreement with First Mode, the specialist engineering technology company it partnered to develop the nuGenTM technology.

The agreement is intended to accelerate the commercialisation of the climate-friendly truck and includes Anglo investing an additional $200-million in the combined business to help fund ongoing development.

The London- and Johannesburg-listed mining company will next year enter into a supply agreement with First Mode to decarbonise its global fleet of 400 haulage trucks in support of its 2040 carbon neutral operations goal.

Roll-out is subject to the completion of agreed studies across seven mine sites, certain performance and cost criteria, and relevant regulatory, corporate and shareholder approvals.

Provision of supporting infrastructure such as refuelling, recharging, and facilitation of hydrogen production is included.

The capabilities developing present opportunities beyond Anglo's own haul truck fleet, including across other industries that rely on heavy duty forms of transport, such as rail.

The new combined business will allow strategic third parties to co-invest, offering the opportunity to accelerate their own decarbonisation and participate in the potential offered by clean hydrogen technology.

The new combined business retains the First Mode name and will prioritise building on three years of extensive co-development, Anglo stated in a release to Mining Weekly .

The transition to green hydrogen can be a hugely beneficial reality in the near future with collaboration between companies, countries and knowledge institutions, Higher Education Science and Innovation Minister Blade Nzimande told a just transition event attended by European Commission joint research director DG Stephen Quest, UK High Commissioner Antony Phillipson and representatives of neighbouring African states.

The Minister also emphasised the vital role provincial and municipal governments need to play in collaboration with countries such as Namibia and Angola, as well as partners such as the European Union, United Kingdom, Netherlands, and Japan.

“If we indeed work together, we can speed up the energy transition and make the green hydrogen economy a reality in the near future,” said Nzimande, whose Ministry has been at the forefront of exploring ways in which South Africa can play a significant role in the green hydrogen economy.

Public Works and Infrastructure Minister Patricia de Lille has afforded special integrated project or SIP status to the R100-billion Hive Hydrogen project in Coega, Nelson Mandela Bay, led by former Standard Bank chairperson and one-time Eskom CEO Thulani Gcabashe, the current Hive Hydrogen South Africa executive chairperson.

The burgeoning outlook for the platinum-based green hydrogen economy is highlighting the need for green artisan and green technician development.

Recommended is that South Africa equips its technical vocational education and training (TVET) colleges to develop pathways from high-carbon to zero-carbon jobs through the formal Green Hydrogen TVET Ecosystem Just Transition Strategic Framework aimed at helping South Africa’s workforce to prepare for an emerging green hydrogen economy, in which the Public Investment Corporation (PIC) calculates that investment of more than R4.3-trillion is required.

The hydrogen investment strategy of the PIC, which has R2.339-trillion worth of assets under management, is aimed at unlocking value through providing early-stage capital for the development of the hydrogen value chain and.leveraging off more than 200 hydrogen projects that have been announced worldwide.

PIC sees hydrogen as the next frontier in clean energy technology owing to its extensive value chain applications.

In addition, H2Global ­– a market ramp-up instrument that serves as an innovative form of subsidy scheme to smooth out bumps along green hydrogen’s early-mover road – has made a strong call for final investment decisions to be taken on the multiplicity of green hydrogen projects that are already underpinned by memoranda of understanding.

TVET colleges are being enhanced to play a more pivoting role than ever before in the rapid expansion of renewable energy generation and the transition away from fossil-fuel dependence.

“In transitioning to the inclusive green hydrogen economy, the TVET ecosystem needs to cultivate transversal skills, develop a knowledge common for skills and create an enabling, collaborative environment to address local shifts and challenges,” Nzimande told the event as green hydrogen emerges as an area of huge investment potential in South Africa and Africa.

“We’re a continent of wind and the sun and like Africa is the cradle of humankind, it is also a future primary source of alternative energy, such as green hydrogen,” said Nzimande, who added that the focus would be on green hydrogen exports, local electrolyser and fuel cell production, and the manufacture of green steel, sustainable aviation fuel, ammonia fertilisers and renewable energy components.

South Africa had to potential, the Minister said, to generate between six million tonnes and 13-million tonnes of green hydrogen and green hydrogen derivatives by 2050, an output which would require from 140 GW to 300 GW of renewable energy, and the just energy transition requiring even closer collaboration between industrial companies, innovative small and medium enterprises, training facilities, f...

The race towards a just energy transition in South Africa's hardest-hit region takes another big step forward with the Coega Green Ammonia project receiving government support to fast-track development.

At last week's South Africa Green Hydrogen Summit in Cape Town, Public Works and Infrastructure Minister Patricia de Lille announced that the Hive Hydrogen project in Coega, Nelson Mandela Bay, had been registered as a special integrated project (SIP).

This means that the Hive Hydrogen project, which will produce 950 000 t of green ammonia a year, will be prioritised for implementation and can follow an expedited path to delivery with set and shorter time frames for regulatory processes.

Hive Hydrogen South Africa executive chairperson Thulani Gcabashe described securing SIP status as a huge achievement and expressed pleasure at entering into this next exciting phase of the project, which involves a close interaction with several key State-owned enterprises with the strongest support possible from the South African government.

Eastern Cape Premier Oscar Mabuyane highlighted the project as a crucial milestone achieved after years of project preparation.

“The Eastern Cape gave their strong backing for the project at the Eastern Cape Investment Conference in Buffalo City recently and we will continue through the Coega Development Corporation and the Infrastructure Investment PMO to support Hive Energy and Linde fully as they develop this multibillion-rand project that spans across the Northern and the Western Cape and is anchored in the Eastern Cape. It will trigger and generate industry development with upstream and downstream opportunities that will create more than 20 000 jobs in our province,” the premier added.

Nelson Mandela Bay Mayor Retief Odendaal remarked that “with the lowest GDP per capita and one of the highest unemployment rates in the country, we are very happy to hear this news and what it means for our local economy. We have been working closely with Hive for some time now to help ensure this project is a success."

Nelson Mandela Bay Business Chamber CEO Denise van Huysteen said the project was Nelson Mandela Bay’s most significant to date.

“We have been engaging with Hive for some time and their commitment to aligning their just energy transition objectives with those of the Business Chamber’s strategic priorities are most welcome.

“In particular, we see the company as being a critical contributor towards advancing our Climate Change strategy, which among other areas promotes the green economy and the initiation of renewable energy solutions. With Hive as an anchor, we have no doubt that this will expand and unlock our Metro’s potential to become a key renewable energy hub on the continent as an exporter to major markets like the Far East, Europe and the United States. We are ideally placed as a Metro with good wind and solar sources, a spacious Industrial Development Zone and a world class deep-water port.

“We are looking forward to collaborating with Hive to revive our local economy and create thousands of direct and indirect jobs,” said Van Huysteen.

Hive Hydrogen GM Colin Loubser announced at the panel discussion at the Green Hydrogen Summit on stimulation of localised manufacturing, which included the Minster of Trade, Industry and Competition Ebrahim Patel and senior executives from the Industrial Development Corporation, Anglo American, Arcelor Mittal and Siemens, that Hive had also secured the commitment from one of the world’s largest battery and solar panel manufacturers to establish plants in Coega to support the Hive project and other renewable energy-led businesses in the country.

Hive also told the audience at the summit that they were in discussions to bring electrolyser manufacturers into Nelson Mandela Bay as the Eastern Cape region has demonstrated through its excellent track record in the automotive industry that it has all the skills and resources to host large-scale manufacturing plants fo...

Exploration drilling is gaining momentum at Southern Palladium’s Bengwenyama platinum group metals project, a large, shallow exploration opportunity on the eastern limb of South Africa’s Bushveld Complex.

One specific borehole into upper group two (UG2) reef recorded an impressive 800 centimetre grams per tonne grade.

The project has a Joint Ore Reserve Committee (Jorc)-compliant inferred resource of 18.8-million ounces across the UG2 and Merensky reefs as one of the last undeveloped outcropping or subcropping extensions in the eastern limb.

“The community is very supportive of this project,” Southern Palladium CEO Johan Odendaal enthused in a Zoom interview with Mining Weekly. (Also watch attached Creamer Media video.)

Some A$13-million or R150-million and R160-million rands is earmarked for exploration, with R15-million being spent to date.

Southern Palladium was twice subscribed when it raised A$19-million on the ASX in Sydney on June 8 this year, with a secondary listing also being taken up on the JSE in Johannesburg,

Since exploration drilling began in August, the number of drills has increased fivefold with a likelihood of one of two more being deployed in the new year.

Overall, some 4 200 m has been drilled so far amid 70% of the A$19-mllion raised heading for direct development.

With the bank balance at A$15.3-million, there is sufficient funding to complete phase one and two of the drilling programme, as well as the prefeasibility study and mining right application.

Consideration is now being given to bringing forward the date for the completion of the exploration programme, originally targeted for June 2024.

Completion of the feasibility study is now likely towards the end of 2023, when mining right application is also likely to be submitted.

“The relationship with the Bengwenyama-ya-Maswazi host community goes back 16 years, and through these years, we’ve built a very strong relationship with the community,” said Odendaal.

The community holds a 30% direct interest in the project and a further indirect interest through its 12.3% stake in Southern Palladium.

“What has been important for us is to specifically establish a framework of how are we going to operate and take this project forward, and build on the relationship that we’ve had so far with the community.

“If you look at the various layers within the community, with the royal family, the traditional council and the community on the ground, all of them are in support of this project. What we do as a company as well, even at this early stage with the exploration, we try and see how we can involve the community.

“As an example, through this whole process, we currently occupy a building on the on the community ground, and we rent that building from the community.

“We upgraded it with the community and it will go back into the community in that upgraded state.

“A fence was erected and we got the community involved, and diesel is bought from a local supplier. All in all, we have a community on board and their support to get this project off the ground,” said Odendaal.

Mining Weekly: What are the early indications of your concept study?

Odendaal: Regarding the concept study, or scoping study, as we know it in Australia as well, we will make an announcement early in January specifically on that, and there have been various reports by analysts and I'd refer you specifically to Chris Baker's report that's also on our website that gives an indication of what can be expected from this project. In terms of a scoping study, we will make that final announcement in January and then we will proceed with the prefeasibility study. We currently just getting all the approvals to go ahead with that.

If all future results are positive, when is it envisaged that mining may conceivably be able to begin at Bengwenyama?

If we look at the strike length, this project can maintain a production in order of 170 000 tonnes a month, more or less, and those final numbers will come through in t...

The big renewables deal undertaken by Seriti is indicative of just how passionate South Africans are to make a positive difference for the benefit of future generations, said new Seriti Green CEO Peter Venn of the multi-gigawatt deal that is poised to lighten South Africa’s loadshedding burden and buttress the country’s just energy transition.

“We bought this business from Australia. It’s now 100% South African and 59% black-owned, with passionate South Africans investing to make a difference for future generations,” Venn enthused in a Zoom interview with Mining Weekly.

Standard Bank, RMB and VennEnergy are Seriti’s transaction partners in the Windlab acquisition, with Seriti holding 54.19%, Venn Energy 15%, and Standard Bank and RMB each holding 15.41%.

Venn, with skin in the game through VennEnergy, spoke of his ambition to build three gigawatts (3 GW) to 4 GW of renewable energy over the next five to eight years, with a particular focus on the energy transitioning province of Mpumalanga, where initial wind-farm construction is due to get under way in April.

“As Windlab, we’ve been in Mpumalanga for the last five years, doing the necessary project development, and our short-term goal is to kick off with a 150 MW wind farm in Mpumalanga, where Seriti Resources, with its various coal mines, will be the offtaker and buyer of electricity,” Venn outlined.

More than 3 GW will be based in Mpumalanga and permitting is already in hand for 900 MW, into which the 150 MW first phase fits at a capital cost of R4-billion, funded by equity and debt.

In addition, Seriti Green has projects in the Western Cape and the Eastern Cape and construction of a wind project in Kenya will get under way once the Tanzanian competition authorities approve the acquisition of Windlab East Africa, which is expected next year.

Given the skills shortage within the renewable energy sector in South Africa, Venn explained that Seriti Green would be assisting people to pivot out of other industries and into the renewables sector as part of the just energy transition.

“We’re going to be the poster child for the just energy transition. We're doing it internally. Right now I can see people in the office with the orange logos and the green logos on their shirts.

“Number one is providing green electricity to the coal mines for Seriti, two is looking at the skills development within the workforce within the 16 000 people that work within the Seriti family, and three is bringing the Mpumalanga communities along with us.

“There’s going to be a roadmap over the next 15 to 20 years, where people transition from heavily intensive coal jobs to more renewable energy jobs. My view is that it isn't a replacement, it's an addition, so I think we're going to see significant job growth within Mpumalanga.

“We're also going to see significant improvements within the infrastructure of the electricity sector within Mpumalanga, and this should all bode well for the province and the country as a whole,” said Venn.

Mining Weekly: Will you be doing a lot in parallel in East Africa?

Venn: We have very advanced projects within Kenya and Tanzania. We were successful in the Tanzanian tender in January this year, so our expectation is that we should start construction in Kenya and Tanzania over the next 12 months. The wind resource in East Africa, as we've seen from Lake Turkana, is a fantastic resource, and the Kenyan electricity grid is already over 90% green, which means that any product manufactured in Kenya today can get the green label and gain an advantage from being a green product manufactured in Africa. It's very exciting for us and our teams in those countries and we look forward to the approval of the Tanzanian Competition Commission so that we can move forward.

What is Seriti Green’s ambition when it comes to helping to decarbonise South Africa’s electricity grid?

We will start off with the 150 MW nameplate wind project in Mpumalanga, which will generate in the region of 500 GWh...

Mining Weekly Editor Martin Creamer discusses Seriti Resources acquiring 100% of Windlab South Africa, H2Global's call for rapid green hydrogen investment; and the South African green hydrogen technology which won top global recognition in Monaco.

Proudly South African green hydrogen technology, which has the potential to slash the cost of green hydrogen, has just won top recognition in Monaco at the principality's inaugural hydrogen forum.

The homegrown divergent electrode flow through (DEFT™) technology, which is already a recipient of South Africa’s National Science and Technology Forum Award for Innovation, allows electrolysers to operate without membranes at higher temperatures, which results in greatly improved electrical efficiencies. (Also watch attached Creamer Media video.)

Corrie de Jager, the CEO of Hydrox Holdings, the developer of the technology, stated in a Zoom interview that the patented DEFT system has the potential to slash the cost of producing hydrogen by up to 30% as the world’s first hydrogen electrolyser that does not make use of membranes.

The standard method of extracting hydrogen from water has been by using a membrane to separate the two electrodes. Even the latest platinum-based proton exchange membrane, or PEM, electrolyser uses a membrane. But Hydrox’s patented DEFT system does not, which has resulted in it being recognised as the best emerging technical solution for mobility and marine solutions.

The company’s objective is to produce hydrogen below R100/kg, making it cost competitive with petrol. Its intention is to make hydrogen readily accessible to the public by adopting the single-pump model, which was once used at filling stations by the long defunct Satmar and then later by Sasol in its early days.

“Our technology is membraneless technology, which we patented and prototyped with the support of Shell through its Shell Gamechanger programme.

“This technology is really now coming to the fore and people are taking cognisance of it,” De Jager enthused in an interview with Engineering News & Mining Weekly.

Hydrox competed with hundreds of applicants from 15 global strongholds, among them the US, Europe, Canada, Australia and India.

Conventional electrolysers, De Jager pointed out, lose between 25% and 30% of their electrical input as waste heat, which drives up the price of electrolytic hydrogen, making it uncompetitive with fossil fuels.

But DEFT, without a membrane, allows for higher temperature production and can operate off sea water and treated acid mine water.

Standard electrolysers use a heat exchanger system to remove excess heat so that it does not supersede the maximum operating temperature of the membrane. Within DEFT, this excess temperature can be ‘locked’ into the system to improve system efficiencies, resulting in lower operating expenditure and hydrogen costs. The new system can also handle fluctuating currents, which makes it ideal for renewable energy and ‘green’ hydrogen.

Electrolysis electrochemically splits water into hydrogen and oxygen and for the past 200 years, electrolysers have been limited to lower temperatures and pressures, with electrolysis basically being undertaken using some or other form of membrane to keep the gases separate.

Mining Weekly: How does Monaco plan to use green hydrogen?

De Jager: The principality wants to use it in a marine context. They've got these huge motor boats lying out there in the harbour, massive ones, that all use diesel, and they want to replace the diesel with green hydrogen, as do the countries alongside of them such as Spain and Italy, Gibraltar and Malta. They all approached us. They have a huge need to get into the green hydrogen space.

When is your DEFT electrolyser technology going to be deployed commercially?

That’s the jackpot question. Shell helped us with a grant and then Covid struck and we came to a standstill and had to switch to the advanced alkaline electrolyte standard zero gap system. Now that recognition of our DEFT technology is revived, we can't wait to continue with it.

A strong call for final investment decisions (FIDs) on a multiplicity of green hydrogen projects was made at the South Africa Green Hydrogen Summit in Cape Town yesterday by H2Global, a market ramp-up instrument that serves as an innovative form of subsidy scheme to smooth out bumps along green hydrogen’s early-mover road.

H2Global innovatively enters into long-term offtake agreements on the supply side and short-term sales agreement on the offtake side, with cost differences being borne by the German government, which is laying the ground work for the importation of green hydrogen.

H2Global MD Timo Bollerhey urged the many entities that have already signed green hydrogen memoranda of understanding (MoUs) to advance those agreements to fully fledged FIDs.

“What we’re trying to provide today is an investment case to start production to get from MoU to FID by providing long-term offtake agreements, locked-in prices for ten years, and market risk enhancement through a government-backed offtaker,” Bollerhey stated during a panel discussion covered by Engineering News & Mining Weekly.

Legal certainty is further augmented by ten-year green attribute agreements, all in the interests of eliminating slowdown caused by the chicken-and-egg issues of which comes first, green hydrogen infrastructure 'chicken' or green hydrogen's critical mass 'egg'.

German Federal Ministry of Education and Research innovation and green hydrogen commissioner Till Mansmann spoke of the entire fossil fuel-based market needing to be replaced by a new competitive renewable energy market, with excess renewable energy being stored for days, months or years in the form of hydrogen molecules in modified existing infrastructure or new infrastructure.

Mansmann emphasised that hydrogen is an indispensable core pillar of the transition to renewable energy and without hydrogen the challenge cannot be met.

To enable the transition, new international cooperation is essential, with every country needing to play its part, he stated during a panel discussion in which Sasol VP Gosiame Khoele, ENERTRAG new energy solutions head Tobias Bischof-Niemz and Bollerhey also took part.

An affirmatively nodding Khoele was quick to express full agreement with Mansmann and reiterated the intention of Sasol, where she heads strategy, pricing and regulation, to covert its current grey hydrogen energy into green hydrogen energy.

Germany, Mansmann added, would be a net energy importer for a very long time and was thus interested in the creation of an international renewables market to replace the current fossil market, with H2Global serving as a market ramp-up instrument.

Bollerhey spoke of the first large-scale green programme already being out of the starting blocks in Saudi Arabia and the expectation that many more would now emerge from MoUs to FIDs.

The audience heard that the price of green hydrogen achieved in the market could be much lower than often projected owing to falling marginal costs and the replacement of regulatory uncertainty with standardisation and certification.

The Hydrogen Intermediary Company, or Hint.co, was currently buying a relatively expensive product and selling it at a considerably cheaper price, with the cost of differences being covered by the German government.

Bollerhey said that there was a lot of available money out there, it was not stupid money, but smart money that needed to have investment certainty before being dispensed.

Hint.Co was banker-designed and would fund projects with price certainty and legal certainty creating exactly the business case.

“Once we have that in place, we don't have to worry about money. There's a lot of institutional money out there that is trying to get in,” said Bollerhey, who has had a lot to do with South Africa’s State-owned Public Investment Corporation (PIC) in the past and noted that the PIC is giving its full backing to the development of a hydrogen economy in South Africa

“I'm really happy about the PIC announce...

Australia’s platinum group metals (PGMs) pioneer, Podium Minerals, is evaluating the cleanest and greenest mining and processing options that include the possibility of circumventing the need for smelting.

The Australian Stock Exchange-listed exploration and resources development company, which is placing major emphasis on environmental, social and governance (ESG) considerations, has just completed a conceptual study as part of an update of its six-million-ounce Parks Reef resource base in Western Australia. (See attached map.)

“We're entering our study phases at the moment,” said Podium MD and CEO Sam Rodda, who spoke of Podium being well placed to enter production within the end of this decade, aligned with an envisaged platinum demand pinch point. (Also watch attached Creamer Media video.)

“We're well placed with a significantly large orebody. We've been able to grow it,” Rodda outlined to Mining Weekly in a Zoom interview.

“We're looking at smelterless processing. We have the right team in place and I think this is really the start for Podium Minerals, but it's also the start for Australia and Western Australia as a growing PGMs jurisdiction moving forward,” Rodda enthused.

The orebody, which offers a mix of platinum, palladium, rhodium, iridium, gold, copper, nickel and cobalt, has a 15 km strike, a width of up to 20 m, and remains open below 500 m.

Within the reef package, higher grade hanging-wall and footwall zones provide an opportunity for elevated kick-off margins, which the company is considering taking up.

In addition to PGMs flotation concentrate, downstream processing developments have proven that high metal recovery of the eight payable metals can be achieved using atmospheric leaching, culminating in product suitable for refinery feed.

Additional benefits include higher metal payables as well as the ability to reduce the project’s logistics costs.

“For us, having a very long and potentially very deep and large PGMs orebody, it is important to start small, start building cash flow and confidence in our PGMs operation in Australia, before really ramping up and kicking production rates, or more marginal ounces moving forward.

“High-grade zones give us optionality and help us with managing some of the highs and lows which the market still might see in the next ten years,” said Rodda.

On the technology front, indications show that smelterless metal recovery from the leach solution of an atmospheric leach process can produce a PGMs product suitable for refinery feed, which translates into lower transport costs from Western Australia to a global PGMs refinery.

In his view, demand from the internal combustion engine (ICE) market has still to peak. With increasing emission standards, he foresees ICE vehicle demand extending to the end of the decade, coupled with a slow tailing-off beyond 2030.

“We think demand will be really strong for PGMs in the existing supply space, but equally we're very positive around the future demand on PGMs for green hydrogen production, hydrogen electricity through PEM electrolysers, which are heavy users of PGMs, and then commencement and growth of fuel cell vehicles.

“We think the demand will stay strong and we look forward to seeing what the world looks like in the next ten years. We think the broader world will really need to start thinking where new sources of PGMs will come from,” added Rodda.

Mining Weekly: What is the likelihood of Podium opting to launch with higher grade mining to optimise kick-off value?

Rodda: Whilst we have similarities to some of the reefs in South Africa and some parallels with Merensky reef, our total reef package is between 10 m and 20 m wide. Within that reef package, we do have higher grade zones on the hanging wall and footwall side of our orebody, which will enable us for higher grade, higher return and higher margins going forward. For us, having a very long and potentially very deep and large PGMs orebody, it is important to start small, start buil...

South Africa’s State-owned Public Investment Corporation (PIC) stated on Monday that more than R4.3-trillion is required for the development of the hydrogen economy, which it declared positive for people, planet, and client portfolios.

The hydrogen investment strategy of the PIC, which has R2.339-trillion worth of assets under management, is aimed at unlocking value.

This it will seek to do through:

the funding and provision of early-stage capital for the development of the hydrogen value chain; and

leveraging off more than 200 hydrogen projects that have been announced worldwide.

Hydrogen promises to be the next frontier in clean energy technology due to its extensive value chain applications, the PIC states in a media release to Engineering News & Mining Weekly.

Hydrogen, Africa's biggest financier added, can be used to industrialise and create a resultant hydrogen economy, along with job generation, localised manufacturing and turning this country into one of the world’s largest exporters of green hydrogen.

Through its Hydrogen Society Roadmap, South Africa has already identified hydrogen as an investment avenue, amid this country’s high solar radiation levels and large coastline area that offers prime wind energy potential.

Hydrogen is able to augment that renewable energy production by offering a relatively affordable way to store and transport the excess energy produced from these sources.

In addition, a well-developed hydrogen sector will boost demand for platinum group metals (PGMs), which are hosted overwhelmingly by South Africa.

PGMs are used in electrolysers to separate water into green hydrogen and oxygen, and in fuel cells to generate emission-free electricity from the hydrogen, with both playing key decarbonisation roles.

Hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicle (FCEV) fleets are on the rise worldwide, with China alone targeting cumulative sales of one-million FCEVs by 2035.

PGMs, which have unique catalytic properties, are used in proton exchange membrane (PEM) technologies and momentum behind PEM investment is building up, the World Platinum Investment Council has reported.

PIC’s adoption of its hydrogen strategy comes at a time when several countries around the world have already taken steps use hydrogen as a clean energy source.

Moreover, South Africa’s hydrogen roadmap identifies PIC as a potential co-investor in hydrogen projects, along with other finance institutions.

The recently released Just Energy Transition Investment Plan, or JET-IP, points to an investment requirement of R1.5-trillion over the coming five years to support a shift from coal to renewables in the electricity sector, as well as to facilitate electric vehicle manufacturing and green hydrogen production.

To realise the green hydrogen ambitions outlined in the JET-IP, the Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection has highlighted the need for South Africa to build mineral beneficiation value chains to meet the requirements of the hydrogen economy.