The Minerals Council of South Africa said yesterday that it was of the view that while green hydrogen was part of the solution to the energy crisis in South Africa, it was not the whole solution.
Speaking at the Hydrogen Economy discussion held in Johannesburg, Minerals Council of South Africa’s senior executive of modernisation and safety, Sietse van der Woude, said the Council had been busy with green hydrogen conversations.
“Our experience is that these things need to be driven by leaders. So, in the Minerals Council, we've now got a dedicated hydrogen leadership forum, which is made of designated executives. We've been working very hard. It's been difficult conversations because there's so many angles to the things and opportunities," he said.
Gauteng IDZ chief investment facilitator Maidei Matika said while there was money to support the green economy, the challenge was accessing the funds.
She said there was an R450 million agreement between Germany and IDZ that was being finalised, the COP 26 arrangements of $8.5 billion (R152bn), and a billion dollar fund that was announced that included Netherlands, Danish and IDZ.
“From a funding perspective, I think that there is a lot of money around, however, and I'm in no way in the investment space, per se, but from a finance perspective, that is, I do tend to feel the issue is how do you access that funding?”
Matika said the challenges had never been about the money.
“It appears that we're throwing money at this opportunity (green hydrogen), which is great, but what do we do differently to ensure that we make it accessible for the various projects that we require that allow for that offtake to take off? So again, from a South African context, if you compare us to Namibia, Namibia seems to have a clear offtake around the green hydrogen," she said.
Matika said: “We need to relook at the funding modalities. We need to come up with different ways of looking at the problem of skinning the cat so that we can ensure that it gains traction,” she said.
Department of Science and Technology representative Rebecca Maserumule reiterated with Matika and said there needed to be more clarity around funding.
“If we don't get projects on the ground, we don’t get the funding on the ground. We’re going to lose confidence. I say let’s get some money on the ground. Don’t make the conditions so onerous that people just say it’s just not worth it and then go back to existing our say traditional sectors, where it’s pretty easy. If you go into mining, you sink a mine, it’s pretty easy to return on investment,” she said.
BUSINESS REPORT