The Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment, the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and GFA Consulting Group have release two environmental planning tools – an environmental-impact assessment (EIA) guideline for green hydrogen projects and the South African Green Hydrogen Potential Atlas, an online geospatial atlas depicting the potential and suitability for green hydrogen development.

Development of the tools was funded by the H2.SA Programme, an initiative by the GIZ to promote a South African green hydrogen economy. 

CSIR EIA experts played a key role in generating these tools that contribute to the responsible planning and development of green hydrogen technologies in South Africa.

The 'Managing the impacts of a Green Hydrogen / Power-to-X economy: an Environmental Impact Assessment Guideline for South Africa' offers practical guidance for assessment practitioners, project developers, decision-makers and stakeholders involved in the planning and environmental authorisation processes for complex green hydrogen systems.

The guideline provides an overview of what green hydrogen development entails, the associated policy and regulatory context, guidance on best practice EIA and useful tools for planning projects and assessing impacts. 

The South African Green Hydrogen Potential Atlas is one such tool that aims to support the spatial planning of green hydrogen developments. It is the product of a multi-criteria analysis which considered spatially explicit key siting variables that represent environmental conditions and sensitivities, different uses and users of the environment and the requirements for green hydrogen production.

The atlas showcases the potential for green hydrogen production aimed at export and domestic markets and additionally shows where enabling shared infrastructure could be leveraged to create a South Africa green hydrogen economy.

“Green hydrogen projects are novel and very complex. These tools are intended to assist industry, government, NGOs and other stakeholders in integrating the environmental and social planning of green hydrogen projects into existing legislation and decision-making,” says Paul Lochner, the leader of the CSIR’s Environmental Management Services group. 

“As a freely available resource, the atlas can assist in identifying spatial prospects and constraints for green hydrogen development,” says CSIR senior researcher Luanita Snyman-Van der Walt.

”The atlas provides significant value by offering an integrated environmental and techno-economic view of potential green hydrogen development opportunities. It aims to provide a point-of-departure to identify regions which could be further investigated for green hydrogen development feasibility. It is based on the best available data at the time, but to err on the side of caution, development decisions must be based on fine scale investigation, ground truthing, and stakeholder engagement,” she adds.

It took the researchers from CSIR and GFA Consulting Group 24 months to develop the EIA guideline and the atlas, which are two outputs from an extensive body of work which also produced, among others, prefeasibility guidance for green ammonia and methanol projects, a Life Cycle Assessment for green ammonia and a comprehensive green hydrogen project developer’s guide.