The initial export component of South Africa’s yet-to-be-approved Green Hydrogen Commercialisation Strategy is not premised on the trade of scarce renewable electrons – converted into molecules or other tradeable derivatives – to decarbonise the industries of developed economies in Europe and Asia, Presidential Climate Commission (PCC) commissioner Joanne Bates insists. Instead, such exports are designed to ensure that South Africa can “lock-in” the grants, concessional debt and contract-for-difference price subsidies that are currently being offered by countries such as Germany and Japan to stimulate the use of green hydrogen products in their hard-to-abate sectors of steel, cement, petrochemicals, shipping and aviation.
