Hydrogen Trajectories

The second panel under the “Low Carbon Pathways: Towards a Just Energy Transition” session aimed to explore the role of low carbon hydrogen in Egypt and the UK, in addition to pinpointing the key enablers that are set to accelerate the development of the emerging low carbon hydrogen economies in both countries. During his statement, HE Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources Tarek El Molla shed light on Egypt’s favorable characteristics that make it ideal to having a prosperous hydrogen production, especially behind its strategic geographic location, great specialized infrastructure capabilities, and ample skilled labor. Egypt is currently working on updating its energy strategy in order to include the utilization of green hydrogen, where the country targets having renewable energy make up 42% of the energy mix by 2030, instead of the previously set date of 2035. With the strategy currently being under review and expected to be launched within weeks, Egypt is embarking on realizing such goals by developing a package of incentives for investors in order to develop the hydrogen sector supported by the country’s specialized infrastructure from the transmission, transportation and storage perspective to the existing trained labour.

Currently, Egypt is holding hydrogen pilot projects specially with how new the technology is; nevertheless, the country is adopting the global best practices on this front with the Ministry of Petroleum identifying its interest for green hydrogen by signing a number of agreements that shall develop the sector’s potential. In addition, Egypt’s Government is also working with international partners with the aim of making green hydrogen economically viable for the off-taker and encouraging investments into this sector.

The panel discussion noted that a number of aspects are important to take note off when embarking on this new technology, namely ensuring that the entire supply chain is included within the conversion in order to to bring the cost down, kickstarting the process primarily through setting a regulatory environment and moving forward from there provided, and securing the offtake agreements so that in the future the projects are investable. In addition, the panelists pointed out that the associated costs need to be looked at the green molecular level, essentially by primarily ensuring that what is produced within the country is consumed within the country, with the export model being adopted at a later stage. With a clear competitive advantage in its production of green ammonia, Egypt has plenty of investment opportunities to develop its pipelines specially with its plans to produce and export green hydrogen, in addition to other investment opportunities presented with the Government looking to produce SAF in two locations behind the new mandate entailing that 20% of jet fuels need to come from this type of fuel. Furthermore, the panelist all agreed that the price of renewables, precisely green hydrogen, is set to decrease in around 15 years behind the scaling up of the supply chain and the advancements undertaken across R&D.

Moderated by EBRD’s Managing Director of the Southern & Eastern Mediterranean Heike Harmgart, the session featured the following panelists:

• HE Tarek El Molla, Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources, Egypt

• Jane Toogood, Sector Chief Executive, UK Hydrogen Champion

• Anja-Isabel Dotzenrath, Executive Vice President, Gas & Low Carbon Energy, BP

• Terje Pilskog, CEO, Scatec

• Mike Scholey, CEO, Globeleq

Wednesday June 14, 2023