Mapping cost competitiveness of African green hydrogen exports to Europe

This paper assesses green hydrogen export opportunities for African countries. Governments in many European countries have high hopes in cheap green hydrogen (H2) from Africa to decarbonize hard-to-abate sectors. This study leverages GeoH2, a geospatial levelized cost of hydrogen model, to evaluate the economic feasibility of exporting green H2 from Africa to Europe under four realistic financing scenarios. Our findings suggest that without European policy interventions, African green H2 exports remain prohibitively expensive with least costs ranging from €4.3/kgH2 to €5.0/kgH2 depending on the interest rate environment. De-risking can lower costs to €3.2/kgH2 in Mauritania in a low interest rate environment. In the current interest rate environment, we identify 206 locations in six African countries that may be competitive, yet many of these face a challenging security situation casting doubt on long-term investments. To reduce cost further, lowering the cost of finance, wind energy and potentially storage is critical, rather than shipping costs. Overall, de-risking and strategic location selection are key to make African green H2 exports competitive on the global stage.