South Africa’s rejigged green hydrogen corridor project, Project Rhynbow, has been shortlisted for just energy transition (JET) investment project funding, the recent Platinum Group Metals (PGM) Industry Day audience heard.

“It’s a great achievement for us, as South Africa, to be able to get to this point, and the best achievement will be when tyres hit the road,” Anglo American principal: market development Fahmida Smith outlined during a PGM Industry Day panel discussion covered by Engineering News & Mining Weekly.

Project Rhynbow is a collaboration between Anglo American Platinum, Bambili Energy, Sasol, and TotalEnergies, with Accenture as secretariat, and is focused on creating a local hydrogen economy focused on mobility and stationary applications.

The anticipated timeline for vehicles on the road is 18 to 24 months post funding of the project, which consists of fuel cell electric vehicles and dual-fuel vehicles that both require hydrogen refuelling infrastructure. Having been shortlisted for JET funding, it will now undergo a detailed due diligence process, PGM Industry Day attendees heard.

The panel discussion in which Project Rhynbow was raised was chaired by mining luminary Bernard Swanepoel and led by PwC Africa energy, utilities and resources leader Andries Rossouw, with participants comprising World Platinum Investment Council director of research Edward Sterck, Heraeus Precious Metals head of trading Dominik Sperzel, Platinum Guild International Hong Kong CEO Tim Schlick, Nornickel CEO of Palladium Center Dmitry Izotov, and Smith, who explained that the project’s design allows for green hydrogen refuelling infrastructure to be added as corridor demand increases.

The “at scale” or “scalable” project frameworks allow for green hydrogen refuelling infrastructure to be sized according to utilisation or vehicles that need to be supported.

Being part of the Hydrogen Valley Project developed by the partners and the Department of Science, Technology and Innovation, it was awarded strategic integrated project, or SIP, status in October 2023.

The project’s current focus was on having infrastructure that was sufficient for the number of vehicles needed on the road, “for what we refer to as milk runs, for example”, Smith remarked.

“One of the things that could change is the pace at which the hydrogen economy takes off,” said Sterck.

“Clearly, that’s been slower than we have been anticipating, and it’s probably just worth considering why. “I think the main thing comes down to putting the horse in front of the cart, and that is the production of green hydrogen at scale, at a low enough levelised cost of hydrogen, with the infrastructure in place to distribute that hydrogen and get it to end-users, making it available and making for them these decisions, for example, a fuel cell electric vehicle.

“That requires big subsidies. Now we’ve known about those numbers for a while, but the pace at which those subsidies have flowed has been much slower than we had anticipated, and they are beginning to come now,” Sterck pointed out.