UK based solar energy company Hive Energy's Hive Hydrogen wants to establish the world's 'largest' green ammonia plant in South Africa with capacity to produce 780,000 ton annually. It would have a dedicated solar power plant of unidentified capacity to power the operations.
Hive Energy's CEO Giles Redpath said, "The renewable energy and energy storage component alone will be the biggest project of its kind in Sub-Saharan Africa and one of the largest globally." Green ammonia would be generated through green hydrogen which will then be exported to world markets.
Hive Hydrogen wants to realize the facility with African Oxygen Limited (Afrox) owned by global gases, engineering and technology company The Linde Group. Worth $4.6 billion, the Coega Green Ammonia Plant would be sited within 9,003-hectare Coega Special Economic Zone (SEZ), alongside the Port of Ngqura.
Project partners have completed pre-feasibility study for the planned facility. Now they aim to achieve final investment decision and start development work.
They add that the project will contribute towards South Africa's aim to run a low carbon economy and achieve net zero GHG emissions status by 2050.
In November 2021, another African country Namibia picked Hyphen Hydrogen Energy to build 300,000 ton green hydrogen plant in the country with 5 GW renewable energy capacity, which will then be used to produce green ammonia. Project partners called it's the 1st GW scale green hydrogen project of Southern Africa (see Hyphen Hydrogen Energy For Namibia Project).