Visions of green hydrogen futures in sub-Saharan Africa: Strategies, risks and opportunities

Abstract

Green hydrogen is regarded as important, if not the most important way to defossilize hard-to-abate industries and transport, thereby having a large potential to contribute to climate change mitigation. To produce green hydrogen requires large amounts of renewable electricity, and it has become clear that European countries, especially Germany, will not be able to produce enough green hydrogen in their own territories. This is why politics and industry in Europe have started to actively search for locations outside Europe for green-hydrogen production as important element of European green-hydrogen strategies. Against this background, and partly supported by European actors, various sub-Saharan African countries with favourable conditions for renewable-electricity generation developed their own green-hydrogen visions and strategies. These navigate between export and local uses and are developed in reference to global narratives of green futures. At the national level, African actors see green hydrogen as opportunity to develop new skills and industries, to expand and upgrade existing infrastructures, and, overall, to improve local and national economies by addressing problems like unemployment and high national debt, but also low electrification rates and inadequate water provision. However, the question of who will bear the social and environmental costs of the planned green-hydrogen projects might engender conflict and resistance around developing the required facilities and ancillary infrastructures. In our paper we will analyze green-hydrogen visions and strategies as well as their negotiation and governance in selected African countries with a focus on the tension between export and local uses, and on the associated risks and opportunities for various actor groups and at different levels.