Ready, Steady, GO! 17 hydrogen projects across Australia have signed up to the CER Guarantee of Origin scheme

With the consultation of industry and key stakeholders, Australia’s Clean Energy Regulator (CER) announced in December 2021 that it is working to develop an internationally consistent Guarantee of Origin (GO) scheme for hydrogen. On 17 May 2022, the CER confirmed that 17 hydrogen projects have signed up to a trial to help it understand how a GO scheme could work in practice.

As explored in our article, Fifty Shades of Green, there is no internationally agreed upon definition for green hydrogen (GH2), which complicates its certification. Unlike other certification schemes, the GO scheme will not focus purely on certifying GH2 but will also measure the emissions produced from several production methods and display key attributes of how and where a unit of hydrogen is produced. The scheme is said to work like a ticket, which may be distributed by third parties but will be validated on a single shared registry. This registry would ensure that the CER can monitor and trace tickets and alleviate the need to cross-check contracts.

While such a scheme will involve additional compliance costs to quantify emission intensity, the resulting emission transparency will boost the credibility and business case of renewable hydrogen producers. The GO trials will not only inform an Australian hydrogen certification scheme, but also play a role in shaping international certification standards.

A list of the hydrogen projects involved in the GO trials announced on 17 May 2022 can be seen in the table below.

Source: Clean Energy Regulator