HYENA POWER POD: Turning LPG into Clean Off-Grid Power in Africa

HYENA POWER POD is shaking things up across off-grid Africa. In many places where rolling blackouts and spotty grids have folks cranking noisy, smelly diesel generators, this Cape Town team found a clever hack: use an LPG to hydrogen process right on-site and feed that clean fuel into a fuel cell power system. The outcome? A smoother, quieter ride with cleaner power—no more diesel generator replacement hassles.

How Does the POWER POD Transform LPG to Hydrogen into Electricity?

The pod starts with the familiar propane-butane mix you find at virtually every station across Africa. By blending that LPG with water and running it over smart catalysts in a compact reforming unit, it cracks out a hydrogen-rich gas.

Next up, that gas heads straight into a fuel cell power stack, where oxygen meets hydrogen in an electrochemical dance—sparking electricity while exhaling only water and heat. Keep your LPG tank topped off, and you’re in business; no bulky hydrogen cylinders required.

Who’s Powering This Innovation?

HYENA Energy (the brains behind HYENA POWER POD) got going in Cape Town with a nudge from the University of Cape Town Catalysis Institute. Co-founder Jack Fletcher says, “Our pod cuts out nasty particulates and trims CO₂ emissions by roughly 15% compared to your average diesel generator.” He admits full life-cycle testing is still underway. Fletcher adds they’ve raised about $2 million so far but need more capital to ramp up production and drive costs down.

Industry vet Sakib Khan, working as an independent consultant, points out fuel cells are way quieter and easier to maintain than diesel sets. He dubs the POWER POD a “pragmatic bridge solution,” noting, “Africa’s path to net-zero has to be decentralized—modular setups like this one will be crucial.”

Why Does This Matter for Africa?

In off-grid Africa, close to seven million backup diesel generators guzzle over $20 billion in fuel every single year, belching CO₂ and particulates into the air. Swapping even a slice of those with LPG to hydrogen pods could:

• Slash local air pollution by ditching diesel combustion.
• Reduce CO₂ emissions—HYENA figures show about a 15% cut over traditional gensets.
• Bring down noise levels at telecom towers and remote sites, making work safer and more comfortable.
• Tap into existing LPG to hydrogen logistics, sidestepping tricky hydrogen transport.

HYENA plans its first live demo on a telecom tower in early 2026—where a minute of downtime can cost millions. If that pilot hits its marks, these pods could pop up at thousands of sites in just a few years.

What’s on the Horizon?

The beauty of the POWER POD is it’s built to evolve. Once green hydrogen gets cheap and plentiful, you can flip from LPG today to zero-carbon hydrogen tomorrow—no major hardware swap needed. That flexibility future-proofs your investment and smooths the path to fully renewable, decentralized power.

Challenges remain—each unit still costs more than mass-produced diesel gensets, and operators will need training. But if HYENA can lock in more funding and nail its early pilots, the HYENA POWER POD could redefine diesel generator replacement across Africa—ushering in a quieter, cleaner, more resilient energy future.