Page 15 - AfrElec Week 22 2021

AfrElec HYDROGEN AfrElec

Tlou Energy to develop green and blue

“hydrogen strategy” for Lesedi

BOTSWANA AUSTRALIA’S Tlou Energy hopes that its Lesedi into hydrogen and oxygen. Additionally, it said,
gas-to-power (GTP) project in Botswana will water is “readily available” within the acreage in
serve as a springboard for blue and green hydro- Botswana.
gen production. The statement did not reveal how much
In a statement dated May 28, Tlou said it hydrogen Tlou hoped to turn out in the future or
intended to develop a “hydrogen strategy” to when production might begin. It did say, though,
complement the GTP scheme. This strategy that a move in this direction would “open mul-
should be relatively easy to implement, it said, tiple additional business opportunities such as
since the company has already secured some of solid carbon products, oxygen, ammonia for
the assets and administrative permits it will need energy storage, fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEV),
to move into hydrogen production. agricultural and medical applications.”
“A hydrogen strategy would benefit from In the meantime, the company is holding dis-
Tlou’s extensive approvals secured to date, cussions on a $10mn financing package for the
including environmental, gas and solar gen- initial stage of the Lesedi GTP project, which will
eration licences, access to land and established involve the construction of electricity transmis-
in-country operational expertise,” it explained. sion lines and substations. Some of the parties
“Development of hydrogen is planned to run involved in these talks have indicated that they
in tandem [with the Lesedi GTP project] and would prefer to see Tlou sign a 10-MW power
with time could develop into a lucrative oppor- purchase agreement (PPA) with Botswana
tunity for the company, given the availability of Power Corp. (BPC) before proceeding, while
Tlou’s gas and solar power,” it added. others “have not expressed a specific need” to
The company went on to say that it would be take this step beforehand, the statement said.
able to use its entire resource base to produce Tlou signed an interim PPA with BPC in Jan-
hydrogen. It noted that it had access to “virtually uary of this year, but the agreement only covers
unlimited” supplies of solar power and coal-bed the first 2 MW of electricity from the Lesedi GTP
methane (CBM) that could be used to gener- scheme.™
ate the electricity needed to electrolyse water

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