Munich-headquartered Atmen provides technology solutions to automate certification workflows for projects in the hydrogen, e-fuel and biomethane sectors. The company worked with almost half of all audits that have so far yielded certification for projects' compliance with the EU's definition of renewable fuels of non-biological origin (RFNBOs). Argus spoke to Atmen's head of business development, Maren Preuss, about digitalisation's role in the certification process, key takeaways from working with producers and the main challenges. Edited highlights follow:
What does Atmen do and where do you fit in on the certification side?
We are a regulatory technology company. We have regulatory experts that have followed all the discussions on what constitutes RFNBOs and low-carbon hydrogen, and we have software engineers that translate all the regulations that come from the EU into code. Our customers are producers of hydrogen and derivatives. We take their data and confront it with the regulatory logic in order to help them issue the documents that they need for certification.
We are working between the EU, which sets the regulations, the certification schemes that translate the rules into checklists for compliance, the producers that must meet the requirements, and the auditors that verify information. We don't replace any of these functions, but see our role as the glue that holds it all together.
So the documents that producers create with your tech then go to the auditors?
Exactly. Because for RFNBOs, you need an initial audit and then a re-audit every year. This is why you have to show your proof of sustainability, but also the production data. Auditors might want to verify how you calculated the RFNBO share of your production and how you calculated the greenhouse gas (GHG) intensity of your production, for example. And this is where we help them do the calculations, but also to have all the traceability and have all the documents ready.
What are the key takeaways from the work you have done so far?
Firstly, it is working. It's important to stress that, despite all the news about project pipelines shrinking, RFNBO certifications have now been issued for more than a year and we do see that it works. You do have to provide a lot of data compared with other sustainability claims, but there is a reason for that.
RFNBO compliance is business-critical. You cannot sell your electrolytic hydrogen when you cannot claim that it is green. But this is not the core business for producers and this is an area you can outsource. There are many complaints about bureaucracy when it comes to RFNBOs. There is a lot of data handling involved, but this can be handled through digitalisation.
From your experience, are projects with RFNBO certification typically targeting RFNBO output only, or are they also considering a non-RFNBO share?
Firstly, there will be different markets for different qualities. There are regulated markets for RFNBOs and there are other targets that you can reach with low-carbon hydrogen. And therefore there is interest in different kinds of qualities.
Secondly, from an operational logic, most of the RFNBO projects I have seen will produce some non-RFNBO hydrogen. One reason is that the asset that provides your electricity under a power purchase agreement might be redispatched downwards five minutes before delivery. However, you would have registered the load schedule for your electrolyser 24 hours earlier, so you cannot change that anymore and you probably do not even get the information regarding the redispatch from your electricity source. So just for the lack of notice, producers might realise in hindsight that they were not producing RFNBO hydrogen in that hour. There can be strategic reasons as well. There might be a cloud in front of the solar panels, but you do not want to ramp down your electrolyser because then you might need to go into standby and resort to nitrogen flushing, which is also expensive and not ideal for the environment. So you might want to bridge that time with power from the grid.
Where do you see most interest in your services geographically?
We are active in nine countries so far and have contracted 25 industrial supply chains both within and outside Europe. The RFNBO definition was of course drawn up in Europe, but it has also garnered interest abroad, especially together with demand obligations for RFNBO use from the EU's revised renewable energy directive (RED III). Producers abroad who contact us are looking to export to Europe, for example from the Middle East and north Africa region. Projects all over the world want to follow the definition because we have firm demand targets in the EU.
The EU rules were developed with a European electricity sector in mind where we talk about bidding zones, where investment aid is defined in a certain way and where we do not have centralised dispatch, but markets. These concepts do not always translate easily across to projects elsewhere. But compared with other sectors, I do see a lot of willingness and efforts to solve outstanding issues, supported by subnational organisations like Germany's GIZ. At the same time, producers are of course also looking at potential other markets and if Europe does not move fast enough with more clarity on demand incentives, exports could also go elsewhere.
What are the biggest challenges for producers when it comes to certification?
Some people might say that it is about electricity procurement. But from my experience, this has hardly ever been the problem in the audit process. The area where mistakes have been made more often is the management system. I have asked representatives from the certification schemes about this and they say that most producers are quite well-versed regarding electricity procurement rules now, because discussions have been going on for about five years. Producers have spent a lot of brainpower and money on figuring this out, but forgot that an audit is about more than just buying the right electricity. It is also about process documentation, replacement functions, data security and transparency on plant layouts, for example.
Another key issue I see is related to the registration of certified production. Biomethane has been around for a long time now, but there are still a lot of struggles with the registry. What are the right documents? Where do they go? With RFNBOs, we are in the process of building something new — now is the time to get this right and get a European database working with digital access and uniform standards so that we can have cross-border trade. Getting this right could make a big difference.
What is the latest on databases for registering certified RFNBOs?
The EU's Union Database has been delayed and, to my knowledge, no new timeframe for integration of RFNBOs has been published yet. At the moment, you can register your output only within a country. We have fragmented registries with different approaches. Some progress has been made, for example by Germany's Umweltbundesamt. It is possible to register RFNBOs there now. We appreciate this progress in a market where we are building something new. But if we think about a scalable sector, we need registries that can be integrated with digital infrastructure and not an email inbox that a person has to maintain manually.
