Transitioning SA's Petrochemical Value Chain

SA’s Hydrogen Commercialisation Strategy states that three financial instruments could assist in improving the financial viability of early green hydrogen projects and close the green premium gap, until such point as hydrogen becomes viable in its own right:

• Grant funding, targeted at decreasing the total upfront investment burden

• Concessional debt to reduce the project cost of capital;

• Contract-for-Difference mechanisms to subsidise the price differential between green hydrogen and derivatives and conventional grey hydrogen and derivatives for selected projects, for a certain term. An example here is H2Global – an auction-based mechanism which originated as grant funding from the German government. Sasol is bidding into this programme under the HySHIFT project.

A Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) pilot project, known as the HyShiFT programme, is being developed at Secunda in partnership with Linde, Enertrag and Hydregen, which will bid to secure support under Germany’s H2Global platform. This initiative intends to displace 1% of the grey hydrogen currently used at Secunda with green hydrogen (produced using a 200 MW electrolyser and 450 MW of renewable electricity) to produce 50,000 tons per annum of SAF. The target start date is 2025.