News Flash
- Project HyAfrica (Towards a next-generation renewable energy source – a natural hydrogen solution for power supply in Africa), coordinated by portuguese company CONVERGE!, has received funding in the first call of the Long-Term Joint European Union – African Union Research and Innovation Partnership on Renewable Energy (LEAP-RE).
HyAfrica promotes the exploration and exploitation of hydrogen that occurs naturally in some geological environments. This natural hydrogen (also called white hydrogen) is a primary and clean energy source, continuously replenished by geochemical reactions in deep geological formations.
HyAfrica aims to map the resources of natural hydrogen in promising regions of Morocco, Mozambique, South Africa and Togo and to evaluate its social-economic impact. Moreover, the project will allow regional and national authorities to develop roadmaps and action plans to pursue strategies for exploiting this natural energy source.
If natural hydrogen can be exploited economically, it would remove the need for clean water, which is used during green hydrogen electrolysis, and eliminate the need for expensive Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) associated with blue and green hydrogen.
Related news: the different types of hydrogen production
The project is due to start this year and will run for three years.Led by Converge!, the HyAfrica consortium consists of two German research institutions (Fraunhofer IEE and LIAG), University Mohammed Premier in Morocco, University of Lomé in Togo, Universities of Limpopo and Pretoria in South Africa, and the University Eduardo Mondlane and the National Directorate of Geology and Mines in Mozambique.
Read more on natural hydrogen HERE
Author: Bryan Groenendaal
