Operation has begun on a “12MW electrolyser, now the largest of its kind in Southern Africa”. This is in Namibia and is being run by HyIron Oshivela.

The electrolyser “is integrated into a smart microgrid”, being “powered by a 25MW solar plant and 13.4MW of battery storage, operating exclusively during daylight hours”. Once operating at full capacity, the produced hydrogen from the facility will be “capable of producing 15,000 tonnes of Direct Reduced Iron (DRI) annually”.

Aside from its clean hydrogen significance, the project can claim a good degree of local socio-economic benefit too, with “over sixty Namibian Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs)” having helped build it. And they didn’t hang about, with construction having started “in April 2024, making its completion in under a year a notable achievement”.

In France, startup GravitHy is also looking to “invest in green steel and create 500 jobs” and has just “raised €60 million in investment, including public funding from France’s Première Usine program” to do so.

Big name private-sector investors now also include the likes of Rio Tinto, Engie and Siemens. The first of these, as you might expect, “will supply raw materials to GravitHy and sell low-carbon iron”.

With plans to ultimately “produce 2 million tons of direct reduced iron (DRI) and hot briquetted iron (HBI) annually”, the “total investment in the project will amount to €2.2 billion”. This new investment barely scratches the surface of that – the new cash will simply “allow GravitHy to complete the project development by 2026 and make a final investment decision”.

If all goes well, its new plant “will start commercial production in 2029” using “a 750 MW electrolyser to produce green hydrogen. The company has already “signed a nuclear power supply agreement with EDF and received confirmation of grid connection”, so we know where at least a good portion of the low-carbon electricity will come from.

Both of these projects will undoubtedly be looking to prove their ‘RFNBO’ credentials (Renewable Fuels of Non-Biological Origin, in EU parlance), in order to slurp up any subsidies or tap into other sources of European hydrogen support.

In this regard, they now have three technical inspection companies they can go to, who have this week been “granted official accreditation… allowing them to validate whether green hydrogen production has met the EU’s strict requirements”.

The three are “Belgian certification firm Vinçotte, Munich-based TÜV SÜD and Cologne-based TÜV Rheinland”, with the good news delivered to them by CertifHy, one of the bodies allowed by the EU to dole out such accreditations.