The Alliance for Industry Decarbonization (AFID), facilitated by IRENA, has launched its green hydrogen white paper. Created in collaboration with key industry stakeholders, the paper details the core challenges surrounding green hydrogen and makes a number of recommendations to scale up production, underlining the need for global consensus and harmonisation across standards, regulations and methodology.
The report, published this week, underlines the importance of determining a clear, common, and consistent definition and criteria for green hydrogen to be agreed upon by all countries, including national regulators and stakeholders.
Further, the report recommends adopting a harmonised approach to certification via the IECEx.
The report requests that work be expedited to achieve a global consensus on a common methodology for defining boundaries that enable clear definitions to be established in categorising green hydrogen derived via electrical energy and the boundaries of LCA analysis.
It says a global consensus on the management system requirements necessary to facilitate a chain of custody is also required, as well as a common global ISO standard methodology for assessing the carbon footprint of different hydrogen production pathways.
The report also outlines a call for collaboration among all regulators to reach a common approach to regulations that use international standards and a call for all governments to remove import restrictions on subsidised green hydrogen.
AFID suggests that carbon pricing could be another mechanism to enhance the viability of green hydrogen and its derivatives.
It also highlights the importance of international cooperation in sharing lessons learnt, cross-border expertise and other exchanges of knowledge, which it says are essential in establishing a global framework for the development of the whole hydrogen value chain.
“Collaborative pathways are essential in unlocking the full potential of green hydrogen. Governments, industries and research institutions around the world have recognised the need for joint efforts in driving the adoption of renewables,” the report reads.
For the full green hydrogen white paper, head here.