Hyiron Oshivela is set to produce its first green iron ore three weeks after it announced its green hydrogen success last week.
This is the first production of green iron on the continent, which is iron produced using sustainable low carbon methods.
Highron CEO and co-founder Johannes Michels says last week the company produced another country’s milestone, a few kilograms of green hydrogen.
“We’re still busy optimizing our systems so we only produced a few kilograms of hydrogen. But then we’re increasing the volume to the point where we can produce about 215kg of green hydrogen per hour,” says Michels.
Green hydrogen is required for the production of green iron, which is used to produce iron.
“We’re going to start our first production of iron in two or three weeks,” Michaels said.
Last year, Hyron signed an off-take deal with German steel maker Benteller. This is the first phase of the project’s development, and purchases direct reduction iron (DRI) of up to 200,000 tons (T) from companies with 13 times the production capacity of Hyron (15 000T).
In the early stages, investments of 30 million euros (approximately $595 million) were required, with over 40% of which in the form of subsidies from the German government.
The remaining amount was convened by the founder of the company.
Hyron expects the second phase of development to begin in mid-2025, which will result in a 10-fold increase in solar capacity and requires an investment of 230 million euros (approximately $4.56 billion).
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The third phase is expected to begin in 2026, and once again will increase the capacity by 10 times.
This would cost an additional 2.3 billion euros (approximately $45.6 billion).
By 2030, Hylon aims to produce 2 million tonnes of DRI per year.
Hyron’s DRI production process is completely carbon-free, as it uses hydrogen as a fuel. The water used in the process is infinitely recycled, meaning that the source of water is depleted.
Hyiron is one of the green hydrogen projects operating in Namibia after the official release of the first official perspective on the effects of green hydrogen in Harambee Prosperity Plan II (HPP II) in March 2021.
The company is currently launching similar projects in Australia, considering projects in Angola and Brazil, as well as up to four locations in Namibia.
The Green Hydrogen Strategy, published in November 2022, states that “hydrogen can accelerate socioeconomic development in Namibia” and that by 2030 the hydrogen industry can contribute up to US$6 billion (approximately $119 billion). 000 x 2040″.
