MOU Signed To Launch Green Hydrogen Centre Of Excellence

A major partnership is now underway to advance green hydrogen research in Trinidad and Tobago, supporting this country’s green energy goals.

The University of the West Indies’ Faculty of Engineering, Niterra Company Limited, and Kenesjay Green Limited recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding to establish a Green Hydrogen Centre of Excellence.

It has been lauded as tangible proof of the Hydrogen Research Collaboration (H2RC), an initiative to advance research and innovation in “new” hydrogen, which has a minimal or zero carbon footprint.

General Manager, Energy and Environment at Niterra Ltd, Koichi Arimitsu, believes it’s a partnership that will augur well for Trinidad and Tobago.

“When I look at Trinidad and Tobago as a potential partner for this technology, it’s almost a perfect match for what we’ve been looking for.”

According to Principal Investigator Dr. Graham King, Niterra’s new electrolyser technology, which uses a ceramic-based approach and has proven to be 30% more efficient, will be utilised in this project.

“This one runs at about 700 degrees Celsius; steam is fed in and it’s able to quickly convert that steam which is H2O water, spit out the H and the oxygen, the hydrogen and the oxygen, use the hydrogen and by using the hydrogen we could use that to produce products like ammonia, or hydrogen for other purposes.”

The initiative will be carried out in four phases, starting with a model lab-scale plant, which will be developed further for industrial sites to help partners lower their ammonia carbon footprint.

Dr. King added that Trinidad and Tobago leads globally in ammonia and methanol, with strong energy services, a skilled workforce, export infrastructure, and innovation, making it ideal for sustainable industrial projects and diversification initiatives such as this.

“These are the steps that actually need to be taken to make it real, it leads us towards the potential for like three million tons of carbon dioxide reduction annually, so it’s a massive impact that will help Trinidad and Tobago incredibly in terms of its ability to meet its nationally declared contributions under the Paris Agreement, its NDCs, and it will also then of course allow us to become a leader globally in producing low carbon green ammonia and methanol which are very good carriers of green energy so it puts us right in the centre of the energy transition.”

Dr. King said it’s expected this initiative will position Trinidad and Tobago at the forefront of the global evolution of green hydrogen.

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