GTI Energy adds stakeholders to Open Hydrogen Initiative

GTI Energy and S&P Global Commodity Insights said December 13 they had added a cohort of new stakeholders to their Open Hydrogen Initiative, established in February 2022 to add transparency into the environmental impact of hydrogen production.

OHI’s mission is to create an industry-led objective, credible, and harmonised methodology and toolkit for measuring the carbon intensity of hydrogen production at the facility level to lay the foundation for a low-carbon hydrogen marketplace.

“The new OHI participants announced today will provide crucial marketplace insight to vet the technical protocols and methodologies the initiative will ultimately develop for industry, policymakers, and investors,” said GTI Energy CEO Paula Gant said. “Each founder and stakeholder brings various levels of technical support, R&D perspective, and real-world marketplace insights to close the methodology gap that undermines the commoditization of hydrogen.” 

When the OHI was created, its founding members include GTI Energy, S&P Global Platts (now S&P Global Commodity Insights) and the US Department of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory.

The initiative’s stakeholders now include EQT, the largest gas producer in the US, the UK’s National Grid, global majors Shell and ExxonMobil, Norway’s Equinor and Duke Energy. Non-profit, academic and observer partners include Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy, Columbia University, Stanford University, the Bipartisan Policy Center, the Center for Houston’s Future and the government of Alberta.

Development of the OHI measurement toolkit is already underway and ongoing, with a launch of demonstration projects targeted within the next 16 months. Initial stakeholder work is centered on the characterisation of hydrogen production processes to understand energy and material flows and major emissions hotspots.