Inside an emerging green hydrogen pipeline

June 01, 2026

Source: GIZ Kenya

From the newsletter

Today Hydrogen Rising spotlights the five projects presented during the 4th Green Hydrogen Symposium held in the Kenyan capital Nairobi in late May, ranging from tea, coffee and steel decarbonisation initiatives to sustainable aviation fuel production and green hydrogen industrial parks. 

  • Among the projects showcased during the symposium, the Green Hydrogen Innovations Centre (GHIC) at Nyeri Hill Farm stands out for having already secured first-phase financing. Most of the other projects remain at early development stages and used the conference to pitch for financing, strategic partnerships and investor interest. 

  • The project signed its engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract during the symposium. 

More details

  • Managed by Kenya’s Catholic Archdiocese of Nyeri, Nyeri Hill Farm is a 3,000-acre estate developing the Green Hydrogen Innovations Centre (GHIC) project with support from GIZ and UNIDO. The demonstration project aims to produce liquid green ammonia for use across the farm’s 825 acres of coffee cultivation, reducing reliance on fossil fuel-based fertilisers while shielding the operation from fertiliser price volatility and supply chain disruptions. The project is also expected to avoid an estimated 226 tonnes of carbon emissions annually. 

  • Powered by solar PV, the project will utilise a 0.22MW AEM electrolyser to produce 56,800 kilograms of green ammonia annually, replacing the farm’s current consumption of 180,000 kilograms of fossil fuel-based calcium ammonium nitrate fertiliser. As a by-product, the facility is expected to produce about 56.4 million litres of medical oxygen annually, enough to fully cover supply deficits at the nearby Consolata Mathari Mission Hospital.

  • Construction is expected to begin in July 2026 following the closure of Phase One financing worth $3.2 million. The funding package includes $2.65 million from UNIDO’s Accelerate-to-Demonstrate (A2D) facility and $0.53 million in co-financing from Starkmacher Impact GmbH. Future phases are expected to expand into fertiliser distribution for local communities before eventually targeting industrial-scale production.

  • Beyond the technology itself, the project stands out for its ability to build within an existing operational ecosystem. Unlike many large-scale hydrogen projects that continue to face challenges around land acquisition, permitting and water access, Nyeri Hill Farm already has access to farmland and established water infrastructure. “One of the main challenges of projects is always land rights, what we normally call the wayleaves. So we don’t have any wayleaves that we are undertaking,” Eng. Joseph Njoroge, chair of the project’s technical committee, told Hydrogen Rising, adding that “the question of water is not a concern” because the project already sources treated water from an existing onsite dam and irrigation system.

  • Besides Nyeri Hill Farm, the symposium also highlighted a growing pipeline of hydrogen-linked industrial, fuel and infrastructure projects across Kenya. Kenya’s energy generator, KenGen, presented HYFERA (Hydrogen Future Era Industrial Campus), a proposed green hydrogen industrialisation campus planned for Olkaria within Kenya’s geothermal-rich Green Energy Park. The project seeks to combine hydrogen production, research and development, industrial scale-up, training and innovation within a single ecosystem designed to support Kenya’s emerging hydrogen economy. The project has already completed a pre-feasibility study and stakeholder engagement phase, with KenGen currently seeking $17 million (€15 million) in Phase One funding for feasibility studies, infrastructure development, research projects and ecosystem partnerships.

  • KenGen also pitched a proposed semi-industrial Power-to-Liquids (PtL) modular plant aimed at producing sustainable aviation and marine fuels using geothermal energy. The project has already completed a pre-feasibility study, with development of the semi-industrial plant scheduled for 2027. The power generator is seeking up to $34 million (€30 million) in Phase One funding as it seeks to position Kenya within the emerging market for low-carbon fuels.

  • Meanwhile, Dongo Kundu Energy pitched what the developer described as East Africa’s first utility-scale solar-powered green hydrogen facility planned for the Dongo Kundu Special Economic Zone in Kenya’s coastal city of Mombasa. The proposed project would combine a 20MW solar PV plant, 10MWh battery energy storage system and a 10MW electrolyser targeting production of about 517 tonnes of green hydrogen annually, with a confirmed offtake agreement already in place with Re-Heat Furnace Steel Rolling Mill in Nairobi. The project is currently in an advanced development stage, with permits and Ministry of Energy approvals already secured while fundraising continues for its planned $45 million capital structure ahead of a targeted 2027 commissioning date.

  • Like the other projects showcased during the symposium, H2 Pamoja is built around an identifiable industrial offtaker and a clearly defined use case. The initiative is a consortium of five partners led by Robert Bosch and involving HYTING, Maximator Hydrogen, KTDA, KenGen and MCV, exploring the use of green hydrogen in decarbonising Kenya’s tea industry. The project proposes replacing eucalyptus wood currently used in tea drying with green hydrogen-based industrial heat while also exploring future expansion into mobility and other industrial applications. The initiative is currently seeking funding for a 12-month feasibility study and estimates that full-scale deployment could eventually require up to $342 million (€300 million) in blended-finance investment.

Our take

  • Kenya’s hydrogen sector appears to be entering a new phase where project developers are being required to demonstrate commercial relevance rather than simply resource potential, with projects attracting the most attention being those linked to identifiable customers and industrial demand. 

  • The Nyeri project may be relatively small by global hydrogen standards, but it demonstrates how hydrogen developments can be de-risked by combining a clear end-user, existing infrastructure and secured financing within a single project framework.

  • The emergence of multiple hydrogen projects linked to agriculture is particularly notable. Given agriculture’s importance to Kenya’s economy, projects that reduce fertiliser import dependence or lower processing costs could strengthen competitiveness in key export sectors while delivering benefits beyond emissions reductions alone.