Navigating Carbon Markets and Standards: A Practical Webinar Series for Hydrogen, Power-to-X, and Other Low-Carbon Projects
For those developing hydrogen, e-fuels, or other low-carbon resources, they are already living the reality that “carbon performance” is no longer a single number. It is a portfolio of decisions—how you define system boundaries, how you source electricity, how you treat attributes and certificates, and whether (and how) you use carbon credits. Increasingly, project economics, eligibility for incentives, and market access hinge on getting those decisions right the first time.
EPRI’s Low-Carbon Resources Initiative (LCRI) and EPRI Program 261 (P261): Greenhouse Gas Emissions Accounting and Strategic Applications are partnering on a new effort: Navigating Carbon Markets and Standards: Life Cycle Emissions, Energy Certificates, and Carbon Credits—a series of publicly available educational webinars, with recordings available online.
This post explains what the series covers, why it matters now, and how to use the content to de-risk your next low-carbon investment.
Why this matters now
Low-carbon projects increasingly face a “three-front” accounting challenge:
- Life cycle emissions expectations are rising—particularly for hydrogen and derivative products, where stakeholders and regulators may care about upstream methane, electricity sourcing, and process emissions, not just point-of-production CO₂.
- Electricity attribute certificates (EACs) are becoming a gating item for claims and compliance—especially in electrolytic hydrogen and power-to-X contexts.
- Carbon credits and offset claims are under heightened scrutiny—quality, additionality, durability, and double counting questions now show up in procurement policies, contracts, and border measures.
EPRI Research Program P261, Greenhouse Gas Accounting and Strategic Applications exists to help participants navigate evolving GHG accounting, offsets, and 24/7 carbon-free electricity concepts—exactly the issues that surface in today’s project finance and product certification discussions.
What the webinar series will explore
EPRI frames the series as a strategic, applied learning forum for practitioners working at the intersection of low-carbon technologies, certification regimes, and carbon markets.
1) Carbon accounting, life cycle assessment, and product certification for hydrogen and other low-carbon resources
A recurring pain point in low-carbon markets is that “what counts” depends on the rulebook: voluntary product standards, customer procurement specs, incentive program guidance, or emerging trade requirements. The webinar series is designed to help teams approach these requirements strategically—so LCA modeling decisions, data collection plans, and assurance needs are aligned early, not patched together at the end.
Practical outcomes to expect:
- Clearer definitions of system boundaries and data requirements that affect results (and audit burden).
- How to translate technical LCA outputs into credible product claims and contract language.
- How corporate GHG reporting needs (Scopes 1, 2, 3) can intersect—or conflict—with product-level claims.
2) Implementing the “three pillars” for electricity sourcing—foundational to EAC claims
For many power-to-X and e-fuel pathways, electricity sourcing is not a footnote; it is the emissions profile. The series will address how to implement the “three pillars” approach that often underpins EAC eligibility requirements in clean hydrogen contexts—commonly described as additionality, deliverability, and temporal matching (or closely related constructs, depending on the program).
Why this is hard in practice:
- Contracting: aligning PPAs, EAC instruments, and delivery terms with pillar requirements.
- Operations: matching load and generation over time (annual vs hourly), including the emerging shift toward hourly matching / 24/7 CFE constructs.
- Evidence: maintaining traceability and documentation robust enough for counterparties, auditors, or regulators.
3) Verifying and trading carbon offset credits—voluntary and compliance markets
The series will also tackle how carbon credits function across voluntary and mandatory markets, with emphasis on verification and trading mechanics, and on newer market structures supporting international trade and carbon removal.
This focus is timely. Governments and market integrity initiatives are pushing for clearer rules around authorization, accounting, and avoiding double counting—particularly in cross-border settings. (For a broader public-sector view of these issues, the World Bank’s guidance on navigating carbon markets highlights key policy and accounting considerations and the increasing emphasis on market infrastructure and integrity.)
Practical outcomes to expect:
- What “quality” means in different contexts (methodologies, monitoring, permanence, leakage, additionality).
- How credits are issued, tracked, transferred, and retired—and what documentation you should require.
- Where credit use fits credibly in a decarbonization strategy (including when it does not).
Who should attend (and how to use the content)
This series is especially useful for teams who need to make decisions that stand up to scrutiny across engineering, finance, legal, and commercial functions:
- Hydrogen / e-fuels developers and their offtake and certification teams
- Utilities and IPPs supporting power supply strategies, interconnection, and clean attributes
- Corporate buyers pursuing Scope 2 and product decarbonization claims
- Investors, lenders, and insurers evaluating low-carbon claims risk
- Policy and compliance leaders responsible for defensible reporting and market participation
A best-practice approach is to treat each session as a working meeting prompt:
- Assign one technical lead and one commercial/legal lead to attend (or review the recording).
- Capture “decision points” (data, contracts, claims, controls).
- Translate takeaways into a short internal checklist: what we will do, what we will not claim, and what evidence we must retain.
Where to find the series
EPRI lists the webinar series publicly (with recordings available via the series webpage and webcast listings).