Namibia Powers Up Africa's First Full-Stack Green Hydrogen Hub

An integrated clean energy ecosystem has gone live in Namibia, demonstrating how clean energy can be produced at industrial scale while supporting industrial decarbonisation and long-term energy resilience.

• The CMB.TECH Namibia facility in Walvis Bay brings together solar power generation, green hydrogen production, and energy storage in a single operational ecosystem.
• The plant’s 5MWp solar park covers 6.5 hectares and feeds a hydrogen production facility with a 5MW Proton Exchange Membrane electrolyser and a 5.9MWh battery.
• CMB.TECH, a crude oil tanker transport company, built the facility and is using the green hydrogen for its local industrial applications, making the company its own first customer.

“Many green hydrogen projects are stalling because, while they invest heavily in solar energy and green hydrogen production, there is often no commercial offtake agreement in place to secure demand for the hydrogen produced,” says Sabine Dall’Omo, CEO, Siemens Sub-Saharan Africa, which provides the integrated electrical, automation and safety infrastructure across the site.

In Walvis Bay, solar power drives an electrolyser that splits water into hydrogen and oxygen. To produce marine fuel, the hydrogen will be combined with nitrogen from the air to create ammonia, which is then liquefied.

The hydrogen produced at CMB.TECH will initially power local industrial applications, like dual-fuel trucks, generators and Namibia’s first hydrogen-powered freight locomotive. In the future, the plant will expand and integrate more with port infrastructure, transforming maritime decarbonisation by refuelling ships with ammonia from green hydrogen.

“The next step is to increase capacity to 250MW, then to 500. We want to turn Namibia into a global energy hub and export energy to Europe and the rest of the world. Today we have 7,000 solar panels. In the future, there could be millions,” says Roy Campe, Chief Technology Officer at CMB.TECH.