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Ramaphosa – SA ready to manufacture and commercialise hydrogen fuel

Energy still remains a problematic resource here in South Africa, especially as the nation’s power utility struggles to reduce the frequency with which loadshedding and load reducing takes place. When posed a question about the country’s energy plans during the State of the Nation (SONA) 2021 this week, President Cyril Ramaphosa yesterday highlighted one of the projects centred around hydrogen fuel technology to address the country’s energy woes.

To that end, the president says South Africa is indeed ready to move forward with the manufacture and commercialisation of hydrogen fuel technology in the coming years.

“For more than a decade, government has been working with various partners, including the private sector and academia, to develop hydrogen fuel cell and lithium battery storage technologies. This work serves two important developmental objectives: it offers the possibility of a new, renewable source of energy, while establishing new uses and new markets for the platinum group metals that are abundant in our country,” Ramaphosa explained.

“Hydrogen and fuel cell technologies, which use platinum, offer an alternative source of clean electricity, while hydrogen allows for energy to be stored and delivered in a usable form,” he added.

According to the president, this is a project that government has been working on quite intently.

Via its Hydrogen South Africa Strategy, government and its partners have deployed hydrogen fuel cells to provide electricity in schools and to field hospitals as part of the country’s COVID-19 response, he noted.

“We are establishing a Platinum Valley as an industrial cluster bringing various hydrogen applications in the country together to form an integrated hydrogen ecosystem. This initiative will identify concrete project opportunities for kick-starting hydrogen cell manufacturing in promising hubs,” added Ramaphosa.

While the news of a strategy for SA’s troubled energy grid is welcome news, the announcement during the SONA 2021 reply is the easy part, as no precise plan has been outlined yet for the public. As is a  timeframe for when manufacture and commercialisation of hydrogen fuel technology will be realised.

With most government announcements, we’ll need to wait for something more tangible to be announced before we get too excited.

[Image – CC BY-ND 2.0 GovernmentZA on Flickr]

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