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With the Sultanate of Oman poised to emerge as a global-scale producer of green energy, chiefly green hydrogen and green ammonia, it would be prudent – indeed imperative – for investors to sign up to industry-leading tools to assess the carbon intensity of their production assets, according to a key market expert.
Alan Hayes (pictured), Head of Energy Transition Pricing at S&P Global Commodity Insights, has urged market players with a stake in the Sultanate of Oman’s burgeoning green energy future, to be part of the Open Hydrogen Initiative (OHI), an international collaboration to further transparency into the environmental impact of hydrogen production and help unlock its full potential as an important driver of energy transitions.
The Open Hydrogen Initiative was first unveiled last December jointly by S&P Global, a leading independent provider of information and benchmark prices for the commodities and energy markets, and GTI Energy, a leading US-based research and training organisation.
Representing an international cohort of energy sector professionals, the initiative aims to create objective, credible, peer-reviewed, transparent and open-sourced tools that allow participants from across the hydrogen value chain to assess the carbon intensity of hydrogen at the asset level, says Hayes.
“This initiative has the ambition of producing tools and a methodology to measure the carbon intensity of hydrogen production across all production pathways. As there are various methods to produce hydrogen, you will have very different carbon intensity profiles and different carbon intensity measurements. So it's important to understand carbon intensity across different production pathways so that decisions can be made about what options deliver the most cost effective route of decarbonisation for hydrogen production,” he explained.
Consequently, the tools offered via the Open Hydrogen Initiative are important not only to help understand the decarbonisation potential of hydrogen, but also in facilitating the development of the trading and export of the commodity to major consuming market, Hayes noted.
The Sultanate of Oman, with its ever expanding portfolio of mega-scale green energy investments, has everything to benefit from membership of the Open Hydrogen Initiative, according to the expert.
“It's our ambition to invite as many market participants as possible to take part in the initiative, because we want people, like those behind the projects in Oman, for example, to be part of the process,” said Hayes. “Ultimately, this is a methodology and a tool that we want the industry to use. So the value for being part of the process is that the participants are part of building the tool that best suits their needs. It allows them to very clearly showcase the production and its carbon intensity.” Citing the Sultanate of Oman’s huge potential for green hydrogen production, Hayes stressed it was imperative for the country to be able to demonstrate the potential low carbon intensity of a particular project to prospective markets.
OQ Group, the global integrated energy group of the Sultanate of Oman, is leading a portfolio of over 35 gigawatts – and counting -- of renewable energy capacity that will underpin large-scale green hydrogen projects planned for implementation over the coming decade.
In this context, Hayes underlined the need for the regulators of the future green hydrogen industry in the Sultanate of Oman to be fully part of the Open Hydrogen Initiative.
“We see carbon intensity as being a foundational part of the hydrogen industry as it emerges, which includes regulators. So, if we look across the world right now, you have regulators in different parts of the world who are looking at imposing a carbon intensity threshold,” the expert noted. “But, for the industry to achieve and meet that regulation, they need a method and a tool to allow them to measure their carbon intensity. From a regulatory perspective, we think it's important that we speak to (regulators), who will be looking to the industry to meet the regulations that they're putting in place. And the (Open Hydrogen Initiative) is potentially one of the ways that they can show regulators that they are meeting their requirements.”
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