Guofu Consulting - Overseas business development and risk management expert
Mauritania is located in west Africa, its country is deserted, economically underdeveloped, and its sense of international presence is extremely low.
In recent years, this little-known country has shined in the green hydrogen industry, and has signed several green hydrogen industry project agreements.
Green Hydrogen Project in Mauritania
In May 2021, European new energy developer CWP Global signed a memorandum of understanding with the Mauritanian government to invest $40 billion to build a 30GW green hydrogen plant in the northern part of Mauta over 4 to 6 years. The plant is powered by solar and wind power projects and produces hydrogen by electrolyzing water.
In September 2021, African new energy company Chariot signed a memorandum of understanding with the Mauritanian government to promote a 10GW green hydrogen project. The project, called Project Nour, covers an area of 14,000 square kilometers and is powered by solar and wind power. Earlier this month, Chariot and Total Eren of France announced the launch of a partnership on the project and a feasibility study.
In June 2022, the European Investment Bank (EIB) revealed that it would support Mauritania's green hydrogen investment plan and expand cooperation in wind and solar power generation.
In just half a year, Mauritania has planned two giant green hydrogen projects, attracting a number of investments, involving a huge hydrogen energy production, making Maota a key hydrogen energy production area in Africa in the future.
Why would an international hydrogen developer choose Mauritania as its green hydrogen production base? Before answering this question, let's analyze several properties of hydrogen energy, especially green hydrogen, in energy uses.
Four characteristics of the green hydrogen industry
From the perspective of energy use, the (green) hydrogen energy industry has four characteristics:
1 Cleanliness
Hydrogen's high energy density and combustion produce only water and no greenhouse gases make hydrogen an excellent alternative energy source under the carbon neutrality concept. Hydrogen energy itself has a clean nature, and at the same time requires its production process to be clean, and even because of its cleaning properties, it can sacrifice a certain economy.
From this point of view, gray hydrogen and green hydrogen produced by coal power are not clean enough, and only green hydrogen produced by clean energy power can reflect its cleanliness.
2 Symbiosis
In order to ensure the cleanliness of hydrogen energy, most of the world's large-scale green hydrogen projects coexist with independent clean energy projects, and are powered by clean energy projects to produce hydrogen products.
This can also ensure that the production of green hydrogen will not compete with civil and industrial power.
3 Low electricity price dependence
Energy is lost in the process of electricity-hydrogen-electric conversion in the hydrogen energy industry chain. Under normal circumstances, abandoning conventional electrical energy and using hydrogen energy is a move to seek a long way.
Hydrogen energy has greater significance only when the electricity used to produce it is economical enough. This makes hydrogen more dependent on low electricity prices, and people are more inclined to use surplus electricity or unconnected clean energy projects for electricity production.
4 Flexibility in energy transfer
At this stage, hydrogen energy is characterized by small units of incoherent energy units. This definition is relative to the transmission of electricity. Hydrogen energy and transmission projects can be compared to rail and road freight for energy transmission. Power transmission is a continuous energy transport, while hydrogen energy can be cut into small units for energy transmission, which is more flexible than electrical energy.
This means that from the perspective of energy transmission, the hydrogen energy industry in areas where the high-voltage transmission network is mature, such as China, is generally only used as a supplementary means; In areas without high-voltage transmission grids, it can become a way to transmit energy that breaks environmental restrictions and is less affected by scale effects.
Based on these characteristics, let's try to demonstrate the development logic of Mauritania's hydrogen energy industry.
The logic of the development of Mauritania's hydrogen energy industry
With an area of over 1 million square kilometers and a population of 4.6 million, Mauritania is one of the most sparsely populated countries in the world. In contrast, Maota is about the size of ten Jiangsu provinces, while the population is only one-twentieth that of Jiangsu Province.
The famous Sahara Desert occupies three-quarters of The Muta's land area. The excellent light and cold wind in the desert make Mauritania's solar and wind resources extremely rich, suitable for the construction of new energy projects.
However, the new energy projects built in the desert are difficult for the people of Maota to use. The reason for this is the lack of a mature high-voltage transmission grid that can cover a vast area of Mauritania; The second is that its citizens are mostly nomadic people, living in a fixed place, a set of portable photovoltaic equipment is far more popular than the substation.
Therefore, the clean electricity in these deserts can only be exported through other means, such as hydrogen energy. Given the weak industrial capacity of northwest Africa, most of the hydrogen produced will be shipped to Europe.
To the west of Mauta is the Atlantic Ocean, where hydrogen can be transported by land to ports and by ship to Europe; It can also be transported directly to Spain via Morocco via the gas pipeline.
What about the cost? According to a study published by Italian gas group Snam, producing green hydrogen from solar energy in North Africa and transporting it to Europe is 15% cheaper than direct production in Italy.
That said, hydrogen produced with clean energy in Mauta, combined with the cost of transportation, is still cheaper than in Europe.
The production of green hydrogen with clean energy in the desert is green and environmentally friendly, does not compete with the people for electricity, has low cost, and is convenient for transmission, which perfectly meets several attributes of hydrogen energy listed above. And its industrial investment, which is several times the GDP of Maota' country, has also become a reason that Mauritania cannot refuse.
Of course, a desert country cannot provide the large amount of fresh water resources needed to produce green hydrogen. Fortunately, to the west of The Mauta is the sea, and the sun is overhead. All water problems are actually energy problems, and under the condition of sufficient energy, the fresh water problem will also be solved.
revelation
Based on the four attributes of green hydrogen, taking Maota as an example, we simply deduce the market selection principle of the global hydrogen energy (green hydrogen) industry in the future:
- Abundant renewable energy resources;
- Low local electricity demand;
- It is difficult to deliver electricity to areas with high energy demand, but hydrogen energy is easily transported.
Based on these principles, several key countries and regions for the development of the hydrogen energy industry can be selected:
Middle East: The population areas in the Middle East are scattered in oases, and the construction of high-voltage power grids is large and economically poor, which is suitable for the development of hydrogen energy industry.
Indonesia: A large number of islands are rich in renewable energy resources, but local demand is low, and there is no power grid to transport across the sea to industrial areas such as Java. The dispersed transport characteristics of hydrogen energy provide a more flexible solution. The same applies to Greenland.
North African first-tier countries: the territory is vast and the light is good, facing the European market, and there are gas pipelines that can be used as hydrogen transmission channels.
There are also outer Mongolia and parts of Central Asia, Canada and other countries, which are not discussed here.
The explosion of hydrogen energy is an attempt to upgrade and transform the energy industry under the background of carbon neutrality. Hydrogen energy has obvious disadvantages and obvious advantages. The reasonable choice of markets and models can fully amplify their advantages and overcome their shortcomings.
For energy companies, according to their characteristics to do a good job of prejudgment and advance layout, in this round of industrial upgrading to keep up with the global pace.
■ Author of this article / Wang Qi