Keypoints:
- 5MW plant combines solar, storage and hydrogen
- CMB.TECH provides immediate demand for output
- Namibia sees hydrogen as an industrial catalyst
NAMIBIA is putting green hydrogen to work at Walvis Bay, where a 5MW renewable-energy facility is moving the technology beyond ambitious project announcements and into transport, industrial applications and skills development.
The CMB.TECH Namibia facility combines solar generation, battery storage, hydrogen production and refuelling in one operating system. Its capacity remains modest, but the project matters at a time when much larger African hydrogen schemes are struggling to secure financing and committed buyers.
Hydrogen moves into real-world use
CMB.TECH launched the Walvis Bay facility at Farm 58 in September 2025, but the project has now moved into its operational phase, producing hydrogen for industrial and transport applications. The company describes it as Africa’s first integrated green hydrogen facility.
According to ESI Africa, the site’s 5MWp solar park feeds a 5MW proton exchange membrane electrolyser, supported by a 5.9MWh battery energy storage system that enables off-grid hydrogen production.
The hydrogen is intended for local industrial applications, including dual-fuel trucks and generators.
CMB.TECH is also working with TransNamib on a prototype dual-fuel hydrogen-diesel locomotive. TransNamib said in April that its board had approved a six-month trial involving about 50 return trips along the Walvis Bay-Windhoek corridor.
The buyer is part of the experiment
One of the project’s most important features may be its customer.
CMB.TECH is using hydrogen within its own operations, providing demand from the outset instead of building production capacity and waiting for buyers to emerge.
That addresses one of the main barriers facing Africa’s hydrogen industry. Africa Briefing has reported that weak offtake agreements, high capital costs and infrastructure shortages are slowing green hydrogen projects across the continent.
The Walvis Bay model therefore offers a different proposition: start relatively small, create local demand, build operating experience and establish a commercial case before attempting much larger developments.
Small plant, much bigger ambition
The current operation is not an industrial-scale hydrogen complex. CMB.TECH’s own project documentation described the initial phase as small-scale, centred on a 5MW solar park, 5MW electrolyser and 5.9MWh battery.
Its wider five-year Namibia strategy is far more ambitious. CMB.TECH’s Namibia plans include an ammonia storage and bunkering terminal at Walvis Bay’s North Port and a gigawatt-scale solar-powered hydrogen and ammonia project at Arandis.
Green ammonia production and maritime bunkering should therefore be treated as future development rather than capabilities already operating at Farm 58.
Namibia also has much larger projects in development, including the proposed $10bn Hyphen hydrogen development, highlighting the gap between today’s operating capacity and the country’s longer-term ambitions.
Industrialisation is the bigger prize
For Namibia, hydrogen increasingly represents more than an export fuel.
Namibia’s Sixth National Development Plan targets annual green ammonia production of 1.3m tonnes and 30,000 green hydrogen jobs by 2030, placing the emerging industry within a broader strategy of economic diversification and industrial growth.
Skills development is already part of the Walvis Bay experiment. The facility employs 25 people, 24 of them Namibian, according to The Namibian, with training delivered through its Hydrogen Academy.
The approach also fits Namibia’s wider effort to turn energy and natural resources into manufacturing and regional value chains rather than relying predominantly on raw commodity exports. Namibia and South Africa are already pursuing deeper industrial cooperation centred on manufacturing, energy and regional value chains.
Walvis Bay does not yet prove that Namibia can become a global hydrogen exporter. Nor does a 5MW plant settle the difficult questions of cost, demand and financing confronting the industry.
What it does show is more immediate: Namibia has begun moving green hydrogen out of feasibility studies and into the real economy.
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