Cape Town - A new South African energy company is being formed in a public-private partnership to manufacture fuel cells for sub-saharan Africa.
The company, Clean Energy Inc, will be a partnership between the government’s department of science and technology, Anglo Platinum [JSE:AMS] and the US power technology company, Altergy.
The aim of Clean Energy will be to create a distribution network in Africa for fuel cells and later a manufacturing plant for the cells. Altergy will initially supply market-development services, and in time assembly-line facilities once the fuel cell factory is fully operational.
Dr Cordellia Sita, director for hydrogen and energy at the department, has said that Anglo Platinum has R100m in its PGM development fund.
Most fuel cells use PGMs as catalysts to convert hydrogen into electricity.
South Africa has 75% of global PGM reserves and the government wants to make the country an active participant in developing a “hydrogen economy”.
In the process the intention is to harness expertise from HySA Systems (the department’s research initiative), the CSIR and universities to develop more efficient hydrogen cells.
- Sake24.com.
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