SCATEC, a renowned Norwegian producer of renewable power has expressed its interest in venturing into the green hydrogen market soon specifically through a plant in Egypt. Recently, the government of Norway gave the company a green light to temporarily procure the electricity from the national grid to aid in making the plan a reality soon. While acknowledging the approval, the company said that it was considering working with its partners for quick progress in the highly coveted green H2 sector.
In a move that even makes it easier for SCATEC to actualize its plans, the Egyptian cabinet on Thursday 10th Feb 2022 approved the request. That means that SCATEC together with its partners can now begin the groundwork. If everything goes well as planned, then the green hydrogen plant in Egypt will be implemented ahead of the forthcoming COP 27 Summit that is scheduled for November 2022. To achieve this target, SCATEC together with its partners mainly the Sovereign Fund of Egypt and Orascom a local construction company.
SCATEC’s Egyptian partners will facilitate most of the processes and activities at the initial phase. For instance, it will ensure that the plant gets electricity from the grid. That will not, however, be used forever. The energy from the source will only help at the early stage until the plant can produce its renewable hydrogen power. But that’s not all! As soon as the green power is sufficient to go online, the plant is expected to put into the grid the amount of electricity that it had consumed at this early stage of development.
According to SCATEC and its partners in Egypt, further expansion activities will be carried out once the plant starts green hydrogen production. The aim is to ensure that the amount of green H2 it produces is enough for repaying to the grid, for the plant’s internal operations, and, of course, for other activities that are already lined up as possible users of renewable green hydrogen power. All these are expected to happen once the investment is complete and commercial operations begin.
The project was unveiled in October 2021 and major investment activities are expected to take place in the year 2022. That means all groundwork, siting of the plant, obtaining of relevant approvals, and the actual construction will be carried out. These and other activities are expected to continue up until 2024 when commercials are expected to kick off. So, for the time between 2022 and 2024 major installations of solar and wind power will be carried out to help in powering the electrolyzer. Overall, this and other projects add to the others that are geared towards making sure that the world transitions fully to the use of renewable green hydrogen power.
