Dale Ramlakhan is a futurist.
As he has grown into T&T’s energy sector and his current matrix, he is planning ahead for the next phase of T&T’s energy evolution.
And for him, the future is hydrogen.
So, in November 2022, after working for 15 years at PowerGen Trinidad, he accepted a job offer from the French company, Hydrogène de France (HDF Energy), to be its local country manager.
In April 2022, HDF Energy acquired a 70 percent stake in $200 million hydrogen startup NewGen and recruited Ramlakhan to lead its development.
Hydrogen is widely considered a fuel of the future and this aligned with Ramlakhan’s own vision of providing renewable energy for T&T.
After a career focused on the theoretical concepts of renewable resources, he used the opportunity offered in a meeting with Thibault Menage, vice president of HDF Energy, to apply his learnings.
He explained that with HDF’s investment in NewGen, the HDF team in France and the KGL team in Trinidad realized that to accelerate the development of the project, they needed to set up an office here. Kenesjay Green Ltd (KGL) is the project development company led by Philip Julien, which will hold the remaining 30 percent of NewGen’s share capital.
With T&T already existing in the gray economy of hydrogen ammonia and methanol, HDF believed it could bring expertise and synergy to assist T&T in decarbonizing the downstream energy sector with low carbon and green hydrogen.
Ramlakhan admitted he didn’t need much convincing from Menage.
“I saw this as another win for T&T as the project attracted a powerful and visionary international investor,” he told Express Business in an interview last week.
“My conversation with Thibault would synergize my experiences; PhD in solar energy, 15 years of knowledge and experience in electricity and gas value chains and links to project creation, and my desire to continue T&T’s pioneering role in the future of energy. I now run the first of its kind hydrogen project in T&T. My children David and Clara deserve a place and future plans like the one I enjoyed as a child. I dream of ways to buy them time,” he said.
Ramlakhan said he is confident the partnership will lead to more projects, more jobs and economic activity for T&T.
He noted that HDF TT and HDF Caribbean are staffed by all local or regional personnel, which he believes is “a powerful mix that drives our inevitable arrival into a better future”.
“On the climate front, HDF and the NewGen project gives me the opportunity to be at the forefront of the battle by doing something tangible to make a difference to this challenge. I work alongside passionate people with a similar desire to stand up and make a difference. T&T has offered me great opportunities by exploiting its underground natural resources and is on the cusp of being able to harness above ground natural resources such as solar and wind to complement our existing energy sector, this decision would place me in a place to advance the energy transition for T&T in a tangible way.
“This desire exists because I knew what the previous generation did to give me and all that work in the energy sector today, the opportunity to do this. T&T has transitioned into the energy sector at least twice in the last 40 years and it happened because people stepped up and made a difference. I hope I can be one of the people who do that for the next generation,” he said.
Professional career
Ramlakhan, 40, a graduate of Naparima Boys’, grew up in Barrackpore, Trinidad.
He recalled that two things dominated the space at that time – cricket and oil.
“I was passionate about these two things and did my best to keep the twin fires burning. Eventually, my mother’s voice won out as she drummed into me, “Cricket can’t earn you a living, time to quit.” Perhaps in this decade this statement would be different with the advent of IPL and T20 cricket leagues around the globe, but at that time there was only one correct answer. For me, that was mechanical engineering,” he said.
A graduate of the University of the West Indies (UWI) at both undergraduate and PhD level, he wrote his PhD dissertation on “Solar Photocatalytic Detoxification of Industrial Wastewater in Trinidad and Tobago” before a solar plant was ever considered for T&T.
“Recognizing the potential research opportunities, I chose to pursue a PhD in solar energy in the early 2000s, when the idea of renewables and climate change were still conceptual. Renewable energy and its role in our future became a personal calling. Soon after, the fossil fuel electricity sector became my professional focus, enhancing my vision and understanding of the existing energy ecosystem. This experience would shape my world view of energy,” he added.
Since then, he has joined the House Committee on Energy Efficiency and Alternative Energy.
“This remains one of the best professional decisions I’ve ever made. Membership and collaboration would bring together knowledge and experience from multiple energy value chains into a compelling analytical singularity,” he said.
In 2019, he was given leadership of the committee, which is now called the Decarbonisation Task Force.
He said the Chamber’s advocacy and analysis work has helped Trinidad and Tobago’s energy transition—from lobbying to move natural gas up a higher value chain by promoting renewables and energy efficiency to hydrogen.
“I offered the group the idea of using the inefficiencies of the electricity sector to produce carbon neutral energy for hydrogen production. This was debated and eventually strengthened by the arrival of Kenesjay Green (KGL) and the NewGen Hydrogen project, whose founder, Philip Julien, also served on the committee. This represents a major win, not only for our group, but also for T&T’s energy transition,” he said.
The future of HDF
For HDF Energy, the number one priority is the delivery of the NewGen project.
“This project has been one of the leading large-scale hydrogen projects internationally and attracted the attention of HDF because of its unique features such as the ability to use the benefits of the Point Lisas energy cluster. Not many places in the world have a facility like Point Lisas with plants in close proximity to each other enabling better energy utilization through energy efficient upgrades to existing power plants and with a solar power plant slated to be built nearby as well. Many projects globally are being announced, but none have advanced as much as this one in these three key areas: hydrogen, technical and environmental certification all at once,” he explained.
He noted that the hydrogen production proposed by the project has been reviewed and certified by TUV Rheinland as having a low carbon footprint.
As it stands:
1. The project launched its engineering, procurement and construction contract tender last November and is expected to be awarded by April 2023.
2. NewGen received the final Terms of Reference for the Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA) from the EMA in November 2022 and has selected a contractor and is actively collecting baseline data at this time.
“T&T once again finds itself at the forefront of an energy transition, but there is still much work to be done to make this a reality. There are several areas that need to be navigated expertly but quickly to ensure we continue to lead the pack. The energy sector developed over the last four decades mainly to meet the needs of the rapidly expanding downstream energy sector, and at that time efficient gas use or GHG emissions were not a major problem, but within the decade of recently it has become a major issue and therefore the need to utilize the existing waste heat from the energy sector has become necessary, this improvement in the energy sector is a key principle of the NewGen project and therefore for the project to progress quickly, a decision to upgrade must be timely.
“The second area of concern is the environmental permitting process, and this is globally so, as permitting processes everywhere are not designed for process plants like NewGen that produce zero emissions. We don’t see it as a problem, but a chance for all stakeholders in the process to learn and adapt so that future projects can benefit from accelerated development,” he said.
Right now, NewGen’s short term strategy is being built and operationalized as soon as possible so that in the medium term a pipeline of projects in T&T can be developed together with its partner KGL based on a route determined for success.
