Egypt and Norway have launched the first phase of a project to establish a major green hydrogen plant in Egypt’s Ain Sokhna on the Red Sea, with a capacity to produce 100MW.
President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi of Egypt and the Norwegian Prime Minister, Jonas Gahr Støre at the launch of the project on Tuesday, said the launching was part of the 2022 UN Climate Conference of Parties (COP27) holding in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt.
This event took part of the final day of the Climate Implementation Summit, with more than 100 heads of state and government gathering on the opening days of the conference to work towards the implementation of existing climate agreements.
El-Sisi hailed the project, which will be implemented in cooperation with the Norwegian energy giant Scatec.
The Egyptian president said it provides “a practical model of investment partnership that stimulates sustainable economic development with a focus on the role of the national and foreign private sector besides the government’s role, working side by side in this fruitful sector.”
Scatec has been a major developer at Egypt’s massive Benban solar park in Upper Egypt’s Aswan, one of the largest solar parks worldwide with a total capacity of 1.8 GW.
The Green Hydrogen Plant is part of Egypt’s wider green hydrogen strategy, which has a vision to produce green hydrogen at the cheapest price worldwide.
The strategy is implemented in cooperation with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the Arab Union for Sustainable Development and Environment.
It seeks to help Egypt contribute to eight per cent of the global hydrogen market, Egypt’s cabinet said in a statement on Saturday.
El-Sisi said: “Green hydrogen has become one of the most important solutions on the way towards a green economy during the coming years.
“It is an example where developing countries, including Egypt, are taking great steps.
“However, we still have to face challenges resulting from the tendency of some countries to back local green hydrogen in a way that decreases their production cost.
“This causes imbalance in the global hydrogen market and contributes to undermining the competitiveness of the green hydrogen produced in developing countries compared to the developed countries,” the president added.(NAN)