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China’s green energy plans for Walvis Bay

Augetto Graig
Chinese billionaire Lei Zhang was in Windhoek last month to meet senior government officials in order to discuss plans of setting up a mega green ammonia project at the coast.

Zhang, who met with President Nangolo Mbumba and several Cabinet ministers and officials from the green hydrogen programme, visited Namibia to express his interest in the Zhero 500 000-tonne green ammonia project outside Walvis Bay, green hydrogen commissioner James Mnyupe said.

Lei's company Envision, a pioneer in smart wind turbine generators and the largest supplier of wind turbines in the world and also the world's leading renewable and digital energy entity, announced at the Africa Hydrogen Summit in September that it had agreed with Zhero to invest in the project.

Mnyupe and Theopolina Kapani, head of technical and construction at the green hydrogen program, have just returned from a whirlwind visit to Europe and Asia, where they were particularly impressed with Envision's new net-zero industrial park in Mongolia.

According to Mnyupe, Zhang wants to build ten similar parks around the world, with Namibia identified as the entry point for his global venture into sub-Saharan Africa.

Clean energy hub

He referred to Zhang as the 'Elon Musk of China', explaining that the entrepreneur is also attracted to Namibia’s lithium, which, along with solar and wind power, green hydrogen and ammonia, is a key input for the environmentally friendly batteries he intends to have manufactured locally.

“We have never seen an enterprise like this before,” Mnyupe said. “They use their own equipment, their own technology, and their own energy as engineers, procurers and builders, original manufacturers and owners as well. China is planning global dominance through the production of green goods," he said.

Kapani singled out the Belgian CMB-Tech partnership with the Ohlthaver & List group, which, through Cleanergy, wants to connect ammonia storage facilities in Walvis Bay with green hydrogen production in Arandis to refuel and load ships at the port with energy molecules destined for world markets.

“We want to establish Walvis Bay as a clean energy hub,” she said.

Bunkering, improved port infrastructure, and terminals need to be constructed to make the port a destination on green shipping corridors, and for this, the green hydrogen programme plans to work closely with the maritime directorate to develop an action plan for reducing carbon emissions at the port, she explained.

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Namibian Sun 2024-11-24

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