John Nutt

John is the Managing Director of Delf Consulting Engineers, a specialist consulting engineering firm with offices in South Africa and India. John holds a degree in Structural Engineering from the University of Stellenbosch and is a registered Professional Engineer with the Engineering Council of South Africa. He has a professional career spanning 35 years of which the last 15 years have been focused on developing and implementing renewable energy projects. In 2010 he started work on the use of hydrogen and ammonia as energy carriers for storing and transporting renewable energy from African countries where this is abundant.  This work included finding the lowest cost energy for conversion into zero carbon fuels. John has vast experience in executing infrastructure and energy projects throughout Africa through concept, feasibility, detailed design and execution. John is passionate about sustainability and finding innovative technological solutions to today’s challenges. It is this passion that provided the opportunity to become part of the team developing a game-changing green hydrogen project in South Africa. From 2019 John has been working together with Hive Energy on their 1120MW electrolyser capacity Coega Green Ammonia Project and was appointed as Technical Director in 2020.  In this role, John is responsible for all concept engineering, planning, design and commercial modelling of the project from the electron portion through the entire value chain, including the molecule production (hydrogen and ammonia), storage and shipping. The project value is $5.8 billion and is located in the Coega Industrial Zone near Gqeberha, South Africa. The project will deliver 1 million tonnes of green ammonia per year from renewable energy sources generated in the Western, Eastern and Northern Cape provinces. The project has achieved Strategic Integrated Project status from the South African Government which was gazetted in December 2022 and is considered to be a light house project for South Africa whilst fully underpinning the Just Energy Transition. The project aims to provide 20 000 direct and indirect jobs in an area which has one of the highest unemployment figures in South Africa. A total of around 3 500 MW of solar and wind energy projects are under development to supply energy to the plant. The planned commercial operation date is Q3 2029.