Namibia eyes green hydrogen leadership

In an exclusive interview with Energy Connects ahead of Global African Hydrogen Summit 2025, Mercia Geises, CEO of Namibia Hydrogen Fund Managers, highlights the continent’s renewable advantage driving new wave of industrialisation by 2030.

What would you say are the key challenges within this operating environment that you’re helping your partners and the developers to overcome?

Currently we’ve got about 65 million euros under management, and we have committed funding to two projects in Namibia. We are development partners to the Hyphen project, and we are also development partners to the HyIron project. And some of the challenges that we see that the sector faces globally, regionally and locally here is the cost competitiveness of the technology, especially the electrolysers. The efficiency and the cost of electrolysers must come down significantly for the industry to be able to move forward and be competitive with other existing fossil fuel and grey hydrogen producers. And I think the second big thing is industrial scale policy based off-tech, that is what the sector needs to propel itself and get out of where we are currently.

You mentioned about industrial scale, do you think that will only become a real opportunity until these projects have reached or attained industrial scale and the size of the project?

I think there is a significant economic, environmental, and strategic advantage that Africa has in playing its role in the green hydrogen sector. We have got very strong renewable endowments in Namibia, South Africa, Egypt, Morocco, Mauritania. I think the second big thing is that it provides us with an opportunity to leapfrog conventional technology and really establish new sectors, new skill sets and new derivatives from green hydrogen. I believe that’s a significant opportunity that Africa must industrialise. I think there is a lot of advantage and benefit to be derived from energy self-sufficiency and trade within the region, the construction of infrastructure to support energy self-sufficiency, whether it’s now grid integration, port expansions, port integrations, and just having various trading corridors by virtue of this green hydrogen production.

What do you think could really help spur this nascent industry forward in Africa?

I think it’s that the global economy remains committed to the energy transition, and that we still aspire to fulfil our obligations in terms of the Paris Agreement in time. I think that’s going to be a significant driver. But I also think attracting investments and capital into the sector will be a significant driver for the green hydrogen sector, especially for Africa. We have an opportunity to access climate finance from various multilateral development agencies such as the AFDB, the EU and the World Bank. They’re all playing their role in supporting the sector, particularly in Africa. I think that’s the two big drivers, so that we have policy that supports the transition and that we remain committed to the transition, but also that we realise that there is an opportunity, not just for exports, but for us to industrialise our economies. The new policies around mineral beneficiation that we see across the various African regions, especially when it comes to critical rare earth minerals, is a significant opportunity which can be powered by green hydrogen and its derivatives.

Looking forward to the summit in September, what would success look like for yourself personally, but also the Namibia Hydrogen Fund Managers, in terms of the output or the resolutions of the summit?

I think for the country, one of the indicators of success would be if the investors can come back after last year’s conference and see the progress we have made. The pilot projects that were under construction were very early stage during last year’s summit. At least three of the pilots will be fully operational by the time that the summit is held and they are a significant step in de-risking the sector for Namibia. One of the key success factors that we’re looking for out of the conference is that we will have a lot more multilateral finance institutions come and commit the capital so that we can now take the projects from a pilot and a development phase into commercialisation and develop and produce green hydrogen by 2030 and not lose the momentum.