Belgium’s John Cockerill sets up JV with Morocco on green hydrogen: Belgium mechanical engineering group John Cockerill has signed a strategic joint venture (JV) agreement with an unnamed Moroccan energy company to develop a value chain dedicated to undertaking green hydrogen projects in Morocco, it announced in a statement (pdf) last week.

What’s in the pipeline? Among the planned green hydrogen projects is the establishment of Africa’s first alkaline electrolyzer manufacturing plant, a gigafactory aimed at building Morocco’s green hydrogen industry, the statement tells us. The JV will enable large-scale manufacturing of “high powered alkaline electrolyzers,” suggesting we’ll see a rollout of John Cockerill’s 5 MW single stack pressurized electrolyzer — which the company claims is the largest in the market. A large cell stack (which is essentially a number of hydrogen-producing cells stacked together) provides low capex and opex costs and ups efficiency by minimizing the number of units installed, John Cockerill notes on its website.

Morocco is already on its way to becoming a regional renewables powerhouse: The country recently passed a law that will allow individuals and businesses to generate, store, and sell their own electricity from renewables. It also plans to export 3.6 GW of electricity to the UK from solar and wind energy projects with a combined capacity of 10.5 GW by 2030. Morocco received EUR 38 mn from Germany to finance its first green hydrogen plant in October 2022 and it was recently identified as one of three prospective hubs for green hydrogen export in Africa in a European Investment Bank-led study.

A number of regional and international players are eyeing investment: Egypt’s Hassan Allam Holding is looking at investing USD 50-150 mn in Morocco’s renewables, while Orascom Investment Holding is eyeing an initial USD 100 mn investment, and both independent power producer Lekela and Indian conglomerate Adani Group are considering getting in on the action.