By Kalpana Gupta, Senior General Manager-Business Development, New Energy Business, Greenko
The global demand for low-carbon fuels is growing as it has the potential to contribute significantly to achieving net-zero emissions. While renewable electricity will always remain the first step toward achieving decarbonisation goals, there are many hard-to-abate sectors and processes that cannot be fully electrified, thus, resulting in the need for other clean alternatives such as low-carbon fuels.
New-age energy products include products such as green hydrogen, green ammonia, green methanol, and ethanol, which are produced from renewable electricity and biomass. Green ammonia is one of these alternatives that have the potential to decarbonise hard-to-abate sectors such as power (as a co-firing fuel), industries (as a chemical feedstock to replace grey ammonia), transportat and logistics (as a low carbon fuel in the marine sector), and as a carrier of hydrogen.
Decarbonisation being one of the primary causes of adoption of these green products, it is imperative then that these green products meet all the required certification criteria for these products to be sold in the global market. Green production certification gives information about the carbon footprint of the product, emission reduction by the product, and its renewability. It is becoming as important as the cost of the product itself. The certificate is the first Go/ No Go criterion for the offtaker of green products, ensuring that the green product is indeed ‘green’.
ISO 14067, commission delegated regulation (EU) requirements, LCA standards ISO 14040 and ISO 14044, and GHG Protocol Corporate Reporting Standard are the main standards used in product carbon footprint estimation. ISO 14040/44 provides guidelines for Life Cycle Assessments (LCA) including Product Carbon Footprint (PCF) and is generally a criterion widely used. Meanwhile, the methodology defined in the Renewable Energy Directive (RED) II/III is a regulatory framework, required to be followed for product certification in the EU. RED II/III and its delegated act establish requirements such as a minimum threshold for greenhouse gas emissions savings for fuel to be considered as ‘green’. The scope of this regulatory framework extends into renewable fuel of non-biological origin (RFNBO) and recycled carbon fuel (RCE) as well, in which green ammonia falls under the RFNBO category. For RFNBO, the RED II/III emissions threshold is 28.2 gCO2e/MJ fuel energy content or equivalent to a 70% savings from the fuel comparator (94 gCO2e/MJ fuel energy content) value.
Ecoinvent, Gabi database is the most popular database, which is used in ISO methodology, while RED II methodology uses the database as defined in RED II. Software like open LCA, Umberto, Simpro, and Gabi are used to estimate carbon footprint.
A typical example of a product’s carbon footprint’s boundary up to the product usage for green ammonia is depicted in the below figure.
Renewable electricity generation, storage, and transmission are accounted for as it is the main feed for production. Grid emission must also be accounted for in case grid power is used. Grid emission is, however, different for each country, and for India, currently, it is 0.711 kg CO2e/kWh, and as more and more renewable power gets added to the grid, this number is expected to reduce in the years to come.
H2 generation from electrolysis, N2 generation from the Air Separation Unit (ASU), and NH3 production through Haber-Bosch processes emit carbon emissions during production. All process emissions depend on raw material, water consumption, chemical consumption, fuel consumption, and sourcing of these components.
Product storage, transfer, loading, and transport are accounted for in the total carbon footprint. Transport is the biggest contributor (>60%) in the case of green ammonia transport from India to Europe through the ship. The end-use of NH3 gives the final emission in the value chain. NH3 use varies from customer to customer, some will directly use it as fuel or chemical, and few customers may crack it into hydrogen.
In a PCF calculation, Scope 1 emissions come from direct emissions (e.g. from combustion of fuel), scope 2 emissions are indirect emissions associated with the purchase of energy such as electricity, steam, heat, or cooling, and Scope 3 are all emissions not covered in scope 1 or of the company value chain, usually being indirect emissions from purchased goods and services, business travels, employee commuting, etc. Scope 3 emissions like raw material extraction, employee transport, office furniture, manufacturing of equipment, and building, need to be discussed before being included or excluded. Normally, the construction and commissioning phase is not part of the carbon footprint estimation.
India has declared a 2 kg CO2e/kg H2 (~0.355-ton CO2e/ton NH3) as a green hydrogen standard produced through electrolysis, where boundaries are “Cradle to gate”. RED II guideline translated into ~0.6-ton CO2e/ton NH3 and ~3.384-ton CO2e/ton H2 emission limit through simple conversion based on LHV, where boundaries are “Cradle to gate”, but up to the customer gate so it includes transmission and distribution to the customer and its uses.
If the PCF of NH3 is 20 gCO2e/MJ as per RED II estimation, then the reduction is ~79% in comparison to the fuel comparator, which is more than the 70% limit, meeting the RED II threshold.
As a producer, PCF is required to sell the product, and it also determines how much carbon credit could be earned in the carbon market, if applicable. e.g., grey ammonia has a PCF of 2.0-ton CO2e/ton NH3, while green ammonia is 0.3-ton CO2e/ton NH3. Seller may have a premium of ~135 $/ton NH3 (assuming CO2 price is ~80 $/ton CO2) on the green ammonia.
Besides meeting the RED II carbon intensity threshold, EU delegate acts call to follow additionality, temporality, and geographical correlation for EU certification.
India has an ambitious target of RE installation of 500 GW by 2030, which will meet additionality. Indian grid is “one nation-one grid-one frequency”, which qualifies for the geographically correlated. The Indian grid enables trackability and traceability of every electron flowing from multiple generators to consumers across India on a 15-minute time slab, which meets temporality. There could be small challenges, but those could be easily handled, and India could produce RFNBO, an EU-certified energy product.
Independent entities are issuing certificates to confirm that a unit of a given energy carrier has a set of sustainability attributes upon its production and/or along the entire value chain, that is useful for both producer and customer. The basic working principle of these agencies is the same, while representation and understanding of local requirements could be different.
In conclusion, product carbon footprint estimation and certification are a must in today’s new energy market. Fuel must meet its renewability and GHG emission reduction criteria to become RED II compliant with the EU. It is better to do this exercise at the early stage /design phase of the project so that during execution, only minimal changes may be required to keep the carbon footprint within the limit. CO2 emissions are the dominant part of the emission sources considered in the estimation of the CO2 footprint, but in CO2e, all Kyoto Protocol GHG emissions (N2O, PFCs, Sf6, CH4, and HFC) have to be considered. CO-products could easily share the carbon footprint of the main product, which implies it is better to think of that at the design stage. Environmental carbon footprint, e. g. Biodiversity, land, and water uses are also important along with the carbon footprint of products.
About the author: Kalpana Gupta is working as Senior General Manager in Business Development and Sales at Greenko Zero C India. Her portfolio includes green molecule (hydrogen, ammonia, other) off-taker agreements, green molecule bidding activities, and exploring new technologies, markets, and clients for the complete value chain of green molecules. In parallel, she is coordinating all activities related to green product certification for Greenko. She has 23+ years of experience in the oil and gas downstream and new energy business. Before Greenko, she worked as Chief Engineer in the Process and Technology department of Technip Energies India Ltd and also worked at Air Liquide India, Onward Technology, and IIT Mumbai. She holds a B. Tech. degree in chemical engineering from MNIT, Jaipur, a master’s Degree from IIT, Delhi, and diploma course in Renewable Energy from TERI University, Delhi, and a course in Waste to energy from NPTEL. She has published several papers in international magazines and has given presentations on various platforms in renewable energy, hydrogen economy, and sustainable chemistry. She is a net-zero enthusiast and wants to work for a sustainable, smiling, and strong society.
