Namibia began, on Monday, the construction of the first decarbonized iron industry in Africa, powered exclusively by green hydrogen, part of the Oshivela project, announced the country’s investment promotion body.
The Oshivela project in western Namibia is supported by the German federal government, which injected 13 million euros, and will use renewable energy to generate 15,000 tonnes of iron per year without carbon emissions, said the Investment Promotion and Development Board of Namibia (NIPDB), in a statement cited by Reuters.
Production at the factory is expected to begin in the last quarter of 2024, with plans to eventually increase production to 1 million metric tons of green iron per year.
The steel industry is one of the most polluting in the world and the industry is trying to abandon coal plants and start using decarbonized iron.