The Hydrogen Valley project has helped platinum group metals miner Anglo American Platinum (Amplats) map out a blueprint for the ‘art of the possible’ for green hydrogen to develop and scale up in South Africa, Amplats market development principal Fahmida Smith has noted.

The Hydrogen Valley project, led by the Department of Science and Innovation and stretching 837 km from Limpopo through Gauteng into KwaZulu-Natal includes nine catalytic projects, of which Amplats' parent company Anglo American is leading activities in four, she said at the South Africa Green Hydrogen Summit on November 29.

Bambili Energy and Engie have been partners with Amplats in its Hydrogen Valley endeavours.

The first of these endeavours is Amplats’ hydrogen-powered mobility ambitions, culminating in Amplats launching the world’s first rigid dump truck powered by hydrogen and using fuel cell technology at its Mogalakwena mine earlier this year.

Smith added that another great achievement in terms of Hydrogen Valley developments was Infrastructure South Africa's recognition of Amplats' hydrogen fuel cell truck as a Strategic Infrastructure Project (SIP). “We look forward to, in the next few months, having it officially gazetted [as a SIP project],” she says.

In terms of mining haul trucks, Smith said Amplats was continuing with performance testing on the large hydrogen fuel cell dump truck, which is thus far “show[ing] great performance”. Amplats has already used this dump truck in the Mogalakwena pit to move material.

Going forward, she said Amplats planned to roll out hydrogen fuel cell rigid dump trucks across its operations.

Further, Smith said Anglo American also wanted to roll out hydrogen fuel cell dump trucks at its other operations across the world, meaning that as many as 400 dump trucks will be powered using hydrogen in the future.

Back to the Hydrogen Valley developments, she said Amplats had onboarded Sasol and Total Energies, which have joined the Rainbow project, forming a consortium to help develop a hydrogen-fuelled logistics supply chain in South Africa.

“What we look forward to is really getting [hydrogen-powered] buses and trucks by 2024, early 2025 on the road,” said Smith.

Amplats’ fourth Hydrogen Valley opportunity is hydrogen and fuel cell technologies within stationary applications. “[This] project is still in prefeasibility stage. The next phase is getting it to feasibility and then demonstration,” she said.