Egypt to announce national green hydrogen strategy at COP27 – Climate change – COP27

This picture shows the main entrance of the Sharm El Sheikh International Convention Centre where the COP27 climate summit will take place, in Egypt s Red Sea resort city of Sharm el-Sheikh, on November 5, 2022. AFP

Egypt’s green hydrogen strategy, implemented in cooperation with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the Arab Union for Sustainable Development and Environment (AUSDE), seeks to help Egypt contribute to 8 percent of the global hydrogen market, the Cabinet said in a statement on Saturday.

Egypt is capable of producing green hydrogen at the cheapest price worldwide, the Cabinet said, noting that the hydrogen production cost is set to drop to $1.7 per kg by 2050 instead of $2.7 per kg in 2025.

The strategy will increase Egypt’s GDP by $10-18 billion by 2025, create more than 100,000 job opportunities, and contribute to decreasing Egypt’s import of petroleum products and therefore reducing emissions, the government has said.

Egypt recently signed a number of MoUs on hydrogen and green ammonia production with international partners as part of the country’s efforts to attract foreign investments into green hydrogen production in order to become a transit route for clean energy to Europe.

Late in August, the Egyptian government signed an MoU with Globeleq and Actis, two UK-based companies specialised in renewable energy, to develop green hydrogen. The project will be developed over three phases, totalling 3.6 GW of electrolysers and around 9 GW of solar and wind power generation.

Globeleq seeks to produce 2 million tonnes of green hydrogen annually in Egypt, the Cabinet’s statement noted.

Egypt is also set to have its first green hydrogen plant with a 100 MW capacity in the Suez Canal Economic Zone (SCZone) at a cost of $5 billion, as per an MoU signed with Norway’s renewable energy solutions provider Scatec in March.

The plant will have a production capacity of 1 million tonnes annually with a potential for an expansion to 3 million tonnes per year, the Cabinet said.

The project, which is expected to start production in 2025, will mainly export green ammonia to European and Asian markets, according to a statement by Scatec on 10 March.

This is in addition to similar MoUs with other partners over the past year, including Australia’s Fortescue Future Industries (FFI), Indian renewable energy firm ACME Group, German energy storage firm H2 Industries, and Saudi Arabia’s Alfanar company to build green hydrogen plants in Egypt.

Egypt has intensified its green initiatives ahead of COP27 with plans to boost its green investments to 50 percent of total public investments by 2024/2025, up from 40 percent currently.

The UN climate conference will aim to work towards reducing carbon emissions causing climate change and address existing climate impacts.

Egypt has repeatedly stressed the necessity to commit to the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius as per the Paris Agreement signed during COP21 in 2015.

COP27 is expected to feature the participation of delegations from around 200 countries, more than 120 heads of state and over 40,000 other participants, the highest number ever for a climate summit on the continent.

Also, more than 3,000 journalists and media professionals from around the world will cover the conference.

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