While South Africa’s latest green hydrogen development is a request for information (RFI) involving the East London Industrial Development Zone becoming the site for a greenfield green hydrogen project, major green hydrogen advances are being reported in particularly China, but also California.

China’s green hydrogen industry experienced explosive growth in April, Fuel Cells Works reports on LinkedIn, with new capacity exceeding three-million tonnes. The industry covers the entire value chain of hydrogen production, storage, transportation, and application, breaking through large-scale development bottlenecks through diversified approaches and achieving benchmark applications in transportation and industrial sectors.

China’s green hydrogen sector is reportedly on the cusp of rapid development, potentially blossoming into a $1.64-trillion emerging industry as the country strategically prioritises hydrogen as a cornerstone of its future energy system.

At the same time, platinum-catalysed hydrogen fuel cell trucks are reportedly about to hit the road in a big way at one of the busiest port areas in the US – Los Angeles and Long Beach.

Backed by a power trio of companies, this new wave of clean transportation aims to move goods while cutting back on pollution in a region that really needs it.

Also interesting in China is that buyers in Shenzhen’s over-the-counter market are paying 5 yuan to 6 yuan per gram, or $24/oz above the Rong Tong Gold or RTG price, to secure platinum as an investment metal and also a metal that goes hand-in-glove with green hydrogen electrolysers as well as fuel cells that turn the green hydrogen back into climate-saving electricity for mobility.

Getting back to the latest South African green hydrogen development in East London, information is being requested for work packages including a 10 MW electrolysis platform, hydrogen refuelling dispensing, and three 1 MW hydrogen fuel cells, which are generally platinum catsalysed. While the project will assess a 20 MW solar system as a separate work package, participants may propose solutions for this package as well.

RFI participants will be supplied with the formal invitation to bid pre-front end engineering design document from which the front end engineering design (FEED) study will be compiled.

The project is described as being currently at the FEED stage, with the environmental- impact assessments in process for the green hydrogen production plant and solar photovoltaics.

The project will encompass the complete green hydrogen value chain. Proven desalination technology will be used to treat seawater to produce water suitable for electrolysis, while surplus water will be supplied to commercial customers.

Electrolysers powered by renewable- energy sources will be used to split desalinated water into green hydrogen and oxygen. Infrastructure will be installed to compress, store and deliver the green hydrogen reliably to identified offtakers.

The green hydrogen produced will support the decarbonisation efforts of various sectors in proximity to the hydrogen production plant, enabling industrial players to remain globally competitive as the world moves to adopt carbon border adjustment mechanisms that will price carbon into production costs.

Meanwhile, Hydrogen Energy reports that China’s green hydrogen electrolyser orders in the first four months of this year exceeded the total for the whole of 2024.

More than 2.4 GW of electrolyser orders from 31 projects were publicly announced between January 1 and April 30 and some expect this number to nigh double in the coming months.

In the UK, Renewables Now reports that British utility SSE plc and Norway’s Equinor ASA, both stock-exchange-listed companies, have been granted planning consent for what they say will create the first integrated green hydrogen-to-power plant in the UK.

Approval for the Aldbrough Hydrogen Pathfinder project reportedly paves the way for construction to begin in 2029, the partners said. Sally O’Brien, senior project manager for the scheme, described the permit as “a big step towards the UK’s low-carbon future”.

To be installed at SSE Thermal and Equinor’s existing gas storage site in Humber, East Yorkshire, the proposed facility will produce green hydrogen from a 35 MW electrolyser. Its output will be stored in a converted salt cavern and then burnt in a 100% hydrogen-fired open-cycle gas turbine to provide flexible green power to the grid. Hydrogen production is targeted to be launched by 2029.

Green power for the project will be sourced from the grid via renewable power purchase agreements, in compliance with the Low Carbon Hydrogen Standard.

Aldbrough Hydrogen Pathfinder is in the due diligence phase of the UK government’s Hydrogen Allocation Round 2. The proposal is one of 27 competing for subsidies through the Hydrogen Production Business Model, which provides 15-year revenue support to producers.

Also in the UK, Wrightbus reports that the cost of hydrogen bus ownership will be on par with battery-electric, but with the added advantages of considerably shorter eight- minute refuelling and a 50% longer range, making platinum-based hydrogen fuel cell buses a scalable solution for operators with demanding duty cycles.

“As the UK’s leading zero-emission bus manufacturer, we welcome the plan to scale up domestic hydrogen production, build local supply chains, and cut one-million tonnes of carbon emissions a year,” Wrightbus stated on LinkedIn, where the testing of Daimler’s hydrogen fuel cell truck is described as being “just the beginning” of a 100 heavy-duty truck involvement.

“Customers who want to be at the forefront of the drive system revolution can test the future of road freight transport with us as early as the end of 2026,” Wiedmann & Winz MD Dr Micha Lege is quoted as saying. A related project is receiving €50-million in funding from the German federal states of Baden-Württemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate as well as the German federal government.

Targets and penalties for the use of green hydrogen in transport have been laid down by the French government, which has opened a consultation on its transposition of the European Union’s (EU’s) updated Renewable Energy Directive (RED III) into French law. Proposed is that green hydrogen and its derivatives make up 1.5% of transport fuel by 2030 and also laid down are penalties for non- compliance. This exceeds the EU’s RED III, which requires that 1% of road, rail, shipping and aviation transport fuels be green hydrogen and its derivatives by 2030.

Australia Green Hydrogen

Designed in Australia after four years of intense innovation and engineering is a patented new green hydrogen system that cuts costs, boosts efficiency, and allows for giga-scale production.

“Just as standardised shipping containers revolutionised the global shipping industry, the P2(H2)Node standardised architecture will streamline the green hydrogen industry by replacing bespoke projects with a uniform approach,” InterContinental Energy stated in a release to Engineering News & Mining Weekly.

The system is said to co-locate giga-scale hydrogen production with wind and solar farms, enabling power to be used where it is generated.