Green Hydrogen in Africa Breifing 2025 Methodology

Data Sources

The data is gathered from Global Energy Monitor's Global Solar Power Tracker and Global Wind Power Tracker. A special data addendum covering projects in Africa was released along with the briefing and is available for download here.

The global solar and wind datasets are available for download. Currently released datasets can be found here (solar) and here (wind) under a creative commons license.

Terminology

The following terms are used throughout the text:

Utility-scale: This refers to any project that is large enough to be included in the Global Wind and Global Solar Power Trackers. GEM catalogs all wind installations greater than or equal to 10 MW, all operating solar projects at or above 1MW and all prospective solar projects at or above 20MW.

Announced: Proposed projects that have been described in corporate or government plans or media releases but have not yet taken concrete steps such as applying for permits.

Pre-construction: Projects that are actively moving forward in seeking governmental approvals, land rights, or financing.

Construction: Site preparation and equipment installation are underway.

Operating: The project has been formally commissioned; commercial operation has begun.

Prospective: Any project that is either announced, in pre-construction, or under construction. To get prospective capacity numbers we sum the capacity of projects that are announced, plus the capacity of projects that are in pre-construction, plus the capacity of projects that are under construction.

Methodology

Data collection is done via secondary research by GEM staff; see the Wind and Solar methodology pages describe the process a bit more. The Wind and Solar FAQ pages also provide information about the datasets.

Countries/areas considered in this brief

This report is focused on all nations in Africa as defined by the United Nations’ region definitions. Global Energy Monitor (GEM) presents energy data within various economic contexts, and the geographical unit does not strictly follow political boundaries. GEM tracks projects located in independent states or non-self-governing territories, including Western Sahara separately.

Identifying green hydrogen

Molecular hydrogen is used in many industrial processes including petroleum refinement and fertilizer production, and has been proposed for use in electricity generation, transportation, and heating. “Green” hydrogen refers to hydrogen that is produced using electrolysis of water that is powered by a renewable power source such as wind and solar. In this briefing only GEM’s Global Wind and Global Solar Power Trackers were sourced, and therefore any “green” hydrogen projects that use a different source of electricity other than wind or solar were not considered.

The data sources for each project in the Global Wind Power Tracker and Global Solar Power Tracker in Africa were reviewed to determine if the project was specifically intended for green hydrogen. Unless a capacity breakdown is provided, we assume 100% of the electricity of that project will be for hydrogen production and that the capacity will be equally split between wind and solar. Some proposed green hydrogen projects aim to have a different final product, such as ammonia or methanol. We have grouped any project that is intended to produce hydrogen, or any hydrogen-derivative under the umbrella "hydrogen" term.

DC Capacity Rating for Solar Figures

Solar photovoltaic (PV) technology inherently produces direct current (DC) electricity. When that electricity is fed into the grid it must first be converted to alternating current (AC). There are inherent losses incurred during the inversion process and therefore the AC capacity is always less than the DC or also referred to as “peak” capacity. Often the project capacity rating is not specified. GEM usually converts our solar capacity figures to an estimated AC value. However, for this briefing we did the opposite, converting all capacities to a DC value. This is because the electrolyzers used in green hydrogen production can use DC electricity so the PV power doesn’t necessarily ever get converted into AC if it bypasses the grid altogether.

How much is 1 Gigawatt (GW)?

Because wind and solar technologies can only generate electricity when the wind blows and when the sun shines, it is important to consider how much electricity a project will generate and not just the capacity of a project. In the brief we provide comparisons to provide context for the capacities we discuss. The assumptions for making these calculations are as follows:

• Wind capacity factor of 30%
• Solar capacity factor of 20%
• If not specified otherwise, assume a 50/50 split of wind and solar capacity
• Generation [GWh/year] = capacity [GW] * capacity factor * 8,765.76 [h/year]

Once generation is calculated it can then be compared to things like the average European household consumption (3.7 MWh/year), the per capita European electricity consumption (5.6 MWh/year), and the amount of power consumed by various countries.

Tracking Ownership

The Global Wind Power Tracker and the Global Solar Power Tracker provide ownership information for projects when that data is readily available. To determine company headquarters for the 216 GW of prospective green hydrogen the total owned capacity was first calculated for each unique owner. In cases where there were multiple owners the capacity of the project was split among the owners according to the percent ownership. When percent ownership was unknown an equal split was assumed. Each owner was then researched to determine where the company headquarters were located.

Figures

Figure 1

Figure 1

Figure 1 was created by looking at location and capacity of all prospective solar and wind projects in Africa from GEM's Global Solar Power Tracker and Global Wind Power Tracker. Data were aggregated to the project level. Green hydrogen projects have wind and solar components aggregated.

Figure 2

Figure 2

Figure 2 was created by summing the operational wind and solar capacities for each country and comparing it to the prospective wind and solar capacities using data from GEM's Global Solar Power Tracker and Global Wind Power Tracker.

Figure 3

Figure 3

Figure 3 was created by summing the prospective wind and solar capacities for each country as well as summing just the prospective wind and solar capacities that are indicated for hydrogen use using data from GEM's Global Solar Power Tracker and Global Wind Power Tracker.

Figure 4

Figure 4

See section on Tracking Ownership for information on how figure 4 was created.

Figure 5

Figure 5

Figure 5 was created by summing the operating wind and solar capacities respectively for each country in Africa and selecting the top 5 using data from GEM's Global Solar Power Tracker and Global Wind Power Tracker.

Tables

Table 1

Largest green hydrogen projects in Africa
Project Name	Capacity (GW)	Country/Area	Owner Headquarters	Notes
Megaton Moon	60	Mauritania	Denmark	2.7 times the capacity of China’s Three Gorges Dam
Aman Green Hydrogen shelved	30	Mauritania	Serbia	Similar to Egypt’s total planned 36.4 GW of green hydrogen
White Dunes	17	Western Sahara	France
AMUN Green Hydrogen	15	Morocco	Serbia / Germany	More capacity than all planned grid-connected wind & solar projects
JER Green Hydrogen	12	Mozambique	United Kingdom	Nearly all of the country’s 13.6 GW of prospective wind & solar capacity
JER Green Hydrogen	12	South Africa	United Kingdom
Djibouti Green Hydrogen	10	Djibouti	Serbia / Denmark	Nearly 170 times the size of the country’s existing capacity
Source: Global Solar Power Tracker, Global Wind Power Tracker