A Policy Review of Green Hydrogen Economy in Southern Africa

Katundu Imasiku, Fortunate Farirai, Jane Olwoch and Solomon Nwabueze Agbo
Additional contact information
Katundu Imasiku: Southern African Science Service Center for Climate Change and Adaptive Land Management, 28 Robert Mugabe Avenue, Cnr Robert Mugabe, Windhoek 9000, Namibia
Fortunate Farirai: Southern African Science Service Center for Climate Change and Adaptive Land Management, 28 Robert Mugabe Avenue, Cnr Robert Mugabe, Windhoek 9000, Namibia
Jane Olwoch: Southern African Science Service Center for Climate Change and Adaptive Land Management, 28 Robert Mugabe Avenue, Cnr Robert Mugabe, Windhoek 9000, Namibia
Solomon Nwabueze Agbo: Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH, Wilhelm-Johnen-Strasse, 52425 Jülich, Germany

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 23, 1-17

Abstract: Renewable energy and clean energy have been on the global agenda for energy transition for quite a long time but recently gained strong momentum, especially with the anticipated depletion of fossil fuels alongside increasing environmental degradation from their exploitation and the changing climate caused by their excessive carbon emissions. Despite this, Africa’s pursuit to transition to a green economy using renewable energy resources still faces constraints that hamper further development and commercialization. These may include socio-economic, technical, political, financial, and institutional policy framework barriers. Although hydrogen demand is still low in Southern Africa, the region can meet the global demands for green hydrogen as a major supplier because of its enormous renewable energy resource-base. This article reviews existing renewable energy resources and hydrogen energy policies in the Southern African Development Community (SADC). The significance of this review is that it explores how clean energy technologies that utilize renewable energy resources address the United Nations sustainable development goals (UN SDGs) and identifies the hydrogen energy policy gaps. This review further presents policy options and recommends approaches to enhance hydrogen energy production and ramp the energy transition from a fossil fuel-based economy to a hydrogen energy-based economy in Southern Africa. Concisely, the transition can be achieved if the existing hydrogen energy policy framework gap is narrowed by formulating policies that are specific to hydrogen development in each country with the associated economic benefits of hydrogen energy clearly outlined.

Keywords: policies; green hydrogen; renewable energy; climate change; sustainable development; Southern Africa (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/23/13240/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/23/13240/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:23:p:13240-:d:691281

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().