RWE leaves the $10 billion green hydrogen project in Namibia
RWE (RWEG.DE), a German power utility, announced on Monday that it had pulled out of Namibia’s $10 billion Hyphen green ammonia project, a setback to the southern African country’s hopes of becoming a major hydrogen hub.
Companies are reevaluating their investments in a new technology that is costly to create, as evidenced by the downturn.
Hyphen and RWE inked a preliminary, non-binding memorandum of agreement in 2022 to begin receiving approximately 300,000 tonnes of ammonia annually, a substance primarily used to create fertilizer, in 2027.
Decarbonizing that process entails substituting hydrogen collected from water using renewable energy sources for the natural gas typically used to manufacture ammonia.
In a statement, the business stated, “We can confirm that RWE is currently not pursuing any further projects in Namibia,” citing the slower-than-expected development of the European market for hydrogen and hydrogen compounds like ammonia.
In light of this, we have examined RWE’s pertinent initiatives. This includes the Namibian project with Hyphen.
According to Hyphen spokesperson Ricardo Goagoseb, RWE had not finalized any purchase agreement and had merely signed “a memorandum of understanding to explore potential off-take.”
The concession was located within a national park and encroached on their ancient Nama land, according to a letter sent in April by indigenous rights groups to the German group.
In a statement released in conjunction with the Nama Traditional Leaders Association, Andrea Pietrafesa, legal advisor at the European Centre for Constitutional and Human Rights, praised the decision to refrain from “purchasing goods produced on land where indigenous rights are violated.”
RWE stated that these objections had nothing to do with their decision.
