The green hydrogen market should develop in Niger over the next few years. This will be thanks to an agreement recently signed between the Nigerien authorities and Emerging Energy Corporation (EEC), a company based in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. This agreement is the culmination of talks between the Nigerien government and the energy company since the first contact was made in Cape Town, South Africa, during the African Energy Week in 2021.
The Nigerian government has given the green light for the exploration and development of green hydrogen projects. The German company, which is developing a strategy focused on Africa, plans to implement an electrolysis technique based on clean energy. EEC believes that such a process should help decarbonize emission-intensive industries in Niger, Africa, Europe and other countries that rely heavily on fossil fuels.
Hydrogen for the international market, but not only…
“The green hydrogen produced in the Republic of Niger is an important driver to accelerate industrial decarbonization and contribute to the electrification of processes, since it is obtained from renewable sources, in addition to generating a more competitive and decentralized dynamic by reaching the different market segments,” says the company headed by Karl Rheinberge.
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The green hydrogen produced in Niger will be exported to the international market, particularly to Europe and America. Moreover, the projects currently being developed in other African countries have the same objective, to support the energy transition in developed countries. However, in Niger, EEC plans to invest in various projects aimed at decarbonizing oil field operations and refineries through CO2 capture technologies.
The new agreement puts Niger in the race to develop the green hydrogen market in Africa. This West African country joins the most advanced countries in this field, Egypt, Morocco and Mauritania in North and West Africa, or South Africa and Namibia in Southern Africa.
Jean Marie Takouleu