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| Hauptseite > Publikationsdatenbank > H2Atlas-Africa Final project report |
| Report | FZJ-2025-04393 |
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2024
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Please use a persistent id in citations: doi:10.34734/FZJ-2025-04393
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Abstract: The menace of climate change is a global threat and the urgent need to decarbonize calls fora global action. Africa, though being the least contributor to global warming, has a huge renewableenergy potential, which if harnessed can suffice for a 100% electricity access to the localpopulation as well as ensuring supply for the other sectors of the economy. Beyond meetingclean energy access for all, renewable energy resources such as wind and solar can be usedto produce green hydrogen. It can open-up economic opportunities along the full value chainof green hydrogen and, hence, can create jobs for the local people. It will enable the region toactively participate in the upcoming future global hydrogen market.The H2Atlas-Africa project has investigated the potential of producing green hydrogen fromselected countries in East, West and Southern Africa, taking into account technological, environmentaland socioeconomic conditions prevailing in each country. This project funded by theGerman Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) assesses the available renewableenergy, land and water resources that are necessary for green hydrogen production aswell as further logistic and political framework conditions that can affect green hydrogen production,its utilization in Africa and the possibility of export. The work done here leveraged thecompetence of an interdisciplinary team at the Forschungszentrum Jülich and the cooperationwith African partners namely the West African Science Service Centre on Climate Change andAdapted Land Use (WASCAL), Accra Ghana and the Southern African Science Service Centrefor Climate Change and Adaptive Land Management (SASSCAL), Windhoek, Namibia andsupport teams in the different countries investigated. In close consultation with these partners,the local preferences, and peculiar contexts are factored in to ensure that there are no conflictsof resource use such as land and water.For the assessment of the technical green hydrogen potentials within the considered countriesa multidisciplinary approach was applied deeply embedding the views and preferences of theAfrican partners. This approach includes identifying eligible placements for renewable energytechnologies such as wind turbines and open-field photovoltaic as well as existing and plannedhydropower plants and calculating their respective electricity feed-in time series. Those renewableenergy potentials combined with the sustainable groundwater yield under different climatechange scenarios form the basis for the optimized local energy system designs to producegreen hydrogen at least cost. The maximum producible amount of green hydrogen representsthe technical potential of green hydrogen in each region if all renewable energies are solelyused for its production. These technical cost-potentials of green hydrogen under climatic andenvironmental constraints are complemented by socioeconomic indicators.Through extensive workshops and bilateral meetings local regulations on 33 distinct criteriafor siting renewable technologies were collected2. The aim was to incorporate the input of regionalstakeholders, including community members, governmental bodies, and internationalinstitutions. Despite the vast size of the continental regions examined, our study revealed thatonly 25-35% of the land area could accommodate open-field PV parks, while approximately16-32% of the land area could support onshore wind turbines 1.Our findings demonstrate that renewable electricity has enormous technical potential of 577PWh/a when aggregated across all evaluated countries and can be generated at relatively lowcosts. For instance, by 2030, Mauritania could produce electricity at just over 2 Ct€/kWh, afigure that could potentially drop to 1.5 Ct€/kWh by 2050. By 2050, most locations in the analyzedregions could produce electricity at costs below 2 Ct€/kWh, offering a promising avenuefor cost-effective and eco-friendly local electricity supply and green hydrogen production. 116To secure a sustainable water supply for green hydrogen production, groundwater sustainableyield was quantified. A first crucial step to estimate groundwater sustainable yield is to calculategroundwater recharge (i.e., the precipitation that can reach the aquifers). Next, we tookinto account that a part of this new groundwater is needed for nature and another part for waterconsumption by people, industry, and agriculture. The water that is then still left is groundwatersustainable yield available for green hydrogen production. Through comprehensive regionalanalysis in West Africa, we discovered a fascinating insight: the average groundwater sustainableyield varies between West African countries from 7 to 63 l/m2/yr1 in 2020, influenced bydiverse climatic and environmental conditions. Looking ahead, we anticipate a slight shift, withprojections indicating a range of 6 to 55 l/m2/yr1 by 2050. For the Southern East African region,in 2020, our findings indicate a potential groundwater sustainable yield ranging from 17 to 134l/m2/yr1 depending on the scenarios. Looking forward to 2050, projections suggest a slightreduction, with estimates ranging from 15 to 122 l/m2/yr1. Our analysis suggests that the availablegroundwater resources are not only capable of meeting current human and environmentalwater needs in the selected regions but also have the capacity to support green hydrogenproduction, although under future climate conditions, there will be some decline. 1,2Based on the huge renewable energy potential the total maximum hydrogen potential in WestAfrica together with Southern and East Africa amounts to just over 400 000 TWh/a, more thantwice the equivalent of today’s global primary energy consumption. Within this hydrogen potential,open-field photovoltaic is mostly the cheapest option with nearly no increasing cost withincreasing expansion rate. Overall, the hydrogen potential based on sustainable groundwateramounts only to roughly 16% of the total technical hydrogen potential limited only by energyconstraints. However, seawater desalination is an alternative water supply option with negligibleimpact on hydrogen cost. 1The Sahara region, particularly towards the Mauritanian coast, and the Nama Karoo region inthe border area between South Africa, Namibia and Botswana, are the most cost-effectivelocations for green hydrogen production. Additionally, countries such as Cape Verde and Lesothoalso have potential in this regard. The production cost in the majority of West, East andSouthern African regions ranges between ca. 2.20 – 3.00 €/kg for the year 2030. The averageLCOH weighted by regional potentials is at roughly 2.6 €/kg in 2030. In 2050, West Africa isexpected to have a slight cost advantage of approximately 1.9 €/kg when compared to Southernand East Africa. This is due to the large low-cost potentials in the Sahara, which outweighthe higher cost potentials in Southern and East Africa, particularly near the equator. The overallpotential-weighted average levelized cost of hydrogen across the entire project at 25% expansionof the respective regional technical potential is approximately 2.7 €/kg in 2030 and isexpected to reduce to 1.9 €/kg in 2050. 1In parallel, the analysis of socio-economic development opportunities showed high local impactpotential around the African Great Lakes, the coastal regions of Upper Guinea, and inlandregions of Nigeria and Burkina Faso. These areas exhibit significant potential due to factorssuch as energy access and macroeconomic impacts. On one hand, the higher potential effectscorrelate with targeting energy access disparities and show high impact in Malawi, Tanzania,Mozambique, Zimbabwe, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, as well as countries in WestAfrica such as Burkina Faso, Sierra Leone, and Liberia, which face challenges with low accessto electricity and clean fuels. On the other hand, macroeconomic effects are driven by potentialemployment impacts, with Nigeria, Burkina Faso, and Cape Verde standing out in West Africa,and Eswatini, Lesotho, Malawi, and South Africa's northwest emerging as key areas in theSouthern African context. This factor, however, shows different regional divergences. WhileNigeria benefits from its large workforce, West Africa's advantage lies in comparatively lower17labor costs. Conversely, countries like South Africa face high labor costs but also high unemploymentrates, necessitating targeted interventions to address the employment potential ofgreen hydrogen and renewable energy projects.
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