Nigeria’s leading beverages manufacturer goes full on solar


Seven-Up Bottling Company, Nigeria’s manufacturer of soft drinks such as Pepsi, Mirinda, Seven Up, H2oh!, and Mountain Dew, has decided to switch to solar as a primary day-time source of energy over all its Nigerian factories.

The company has signed a deal with Daystar Power to install 10.5 MW of solar power systems for five more factories in the country. Earlier this year, both companies already partnered for the design, operations and management of almost 1.5 MW of solar power systems over SBC’s bottling plants in Kaduna and Kano.

The five additional factories will comprise those of Abuja, Lagos (Ikeja), Ibadan and Ilorin, all expected to be powered by solar over the next six months. By 2022, SBC will be Nigeria’s largest industrial manufacturer to use solar energy in its operations.

Both companies have also announced being in discussions to roll out solar energy as the primary daytime power source for SBC’s remaining two sites in Nigeria.  

According to Daystar Power, the solar power systems at the factories could provide over 50% of its total daytime power consumption depending on the installation size and amount of sunshine.

Read more

Tlou Energy to start producing green hydrogen in Botswana from 2022

While Tlou Energy continues to progress on its gas-to-power project north of Botswana’s capital Gaborone, it is now expecting to produce hydrogen and solid carbon products even before electricity. The company has been working on developing Botswana’s coal-bed methane (CBM) reserves to generate electricity since its incorporation in 2009. It is notably focusing on the development of the Lesedi project, consisting in a 10 MW gas-to-power plant and a 100km transmission line from Lesedi to Serowe. The power purchase agreement (PPA) was signed with the Botswana Power Corporation just a few weeks ago. But beyond just monetizing CBM, Tlou Energy has been working on adding solar generation capacity on site to combine large natural gas reserves with solar energy and produce green hydrogen. To execute this vision, Tlou Energy signed in August 2021 a Heads of Agreement (HOA) with Synergen Met, an Australian hydrogen developer and plasma technology company. The project is now moving full steam ahead and the prototype hydrogen production unit is currently being designed, built and tested in Brisbane before its transportation to Botswana in H1 2022, Tlou Energy said today. The use of plasma technology for hydrogen production will be a first for sub-Saharan Africa and open up additional doors for the continent to decarbonize its energy mix. Along with South Africa, Botswana is a country who continues to predominantly relies on coal to generate power for its industries and households. “Tlou Energy and Synergen Met intend to use the hydrogen produced from the prototype to generate electricity and possibly for transport fuel, initially in Tlou’s own vehicles. Solid carbon will be made available for regional consumers that require the product,” Tlou revealed today. Details on the Lesedi CBM Gas-to-Power Project are available in the “Projects” section within your Hawilti+ research terminal.

HYPHEN wins Namibia’s $9.4 bn green hydrogen project

The Government of Namibia has issued last week a notice of award to HYPHEN Hydrogen Energy, the joint-venture of Nicholas Holdings Limited and ENERTRAG South Africa (Pty) Ltd, for the development of a $9.4bn hydrogen project. It seeks to establish Namibia’s first large-scale vertically integrated green hydrogen project in the Tsau/Khaeb national park to produce 300,000 tonnes per year of hydrogen for regional and global markets, either in pure form or derivative such as green ammonia. HYPHEN’s winning bid ensures the company has the right to construct and operate the project for 40 years. Phase 1 is expected to start producing by 2026 at a cost of $4.4bn. It will include the installation of 2 GW of renewable energy generation capacity to produce green hydrogen for conversion into green ammonia The second half of the decade should see subsequent phases be developed to increase renewable energy capacity to 5 GW and commission 3 GW of electrolyser capacity. The project could create as many as 15,000 direct jobs during the four-year construction of both phases, with a further 3,000 jobs created during the operational phase, according to HYPHEN.