Professor Sampson Mamphweli, the head of the department and innovation’s energy secretariat at the Sanedi, said previously thtat South Africa holds the keys to the development of large-scale hydrogen technology as home to 70% of the world’s deposits of platinum-group metals.
South Africa’s leading financing institutions and some overseas development finance groups have committed funding to the R3 billion, SA-H2 Fund, which aims to help fund the development of a pipeline of commercially viable hydrogen projects.
While South Africa’s hydrogen economy is advancing rapidly, it remains in the early stages of commercial deployment, lagging behind developed nations like Germany, Japan, and the US. These countries are already integrating hydrogen into their national energy systems and transport networks. The SA-H2 Fund, also known as Climate Investor Three (CI3) South Africa, was announced by Climate Fund Managers, a blended finance investment manager, which secured R3bn in commitments.
The SA-H2 Fund focuses on large-scale energy transition projects across the green hydrogen value chain. This includes the production of green hydrogen, downstream derivatives such as green ammonia and green methanol, and the decarbonisation of hard-to-abate industries. Green hydrogen is produced using renewable energy sources, such as solar or wind, to split water into hydrogen and oxygen through electrolysis.
