While he’s grown up in T&T’s energy sector and its present matrix, he’s planning ahead for the next phase of T&T’s energy evolution.
And for him, that 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 bought a 70 per cent stake in the US$200 million hydrogen startup, NewGen, and recruited Ramlakhan to spearhead its development.
Hydrogen is widely considered a future fuel and this dovetailed with Ramlakhan’s own vision of securing renewable energy for T&T.
After a career focusing on theoretical renewable concepts, he jumped at the opportunity offered at a meeting with Thibault Menage, vice president of HDF Energy, to apply his learnings.
He explained that with HDF’s NewGen investment, the HDF team in France and KGL team in Trinidad realised that in order to accelerate the project’s development, they needed to set up an office here. Kenesjay Green Ltd (KGL) is the project development company led by Philip Julien, which will retain the remaining 30 per cent of the share capital of NewGen.
With T&T’s already existing in the grey hydrogen economy of ammonia and methanol, HDF believed it could bring both expertise and synergies to assist T&T in decarbonising the downstream energy sector with low carbon and green hydrogen.
Ramlakhan admitted it didn’t require much convincing by Menage.
“I saw this as another win for T&T as the project attracted a powerful and visionary international investor,” he told the Express Business in an interview last week.
“My conversation with Thibault would synergise my experiences; solar energy PhD, 15 years of knowledge and experience in the electricity and gas value chains and links to the creation of the project, and my desire to continue T&T’s pioneering role in the future of energy. I now lead the first of its kind, hydrogen project in T&T. My children David and Clara deserve a future country and planet like the one I enjoyed when I was 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 propels our inevitable arrival at a better future.”
“On the climate front, HDF and the NewGen project gives me the opportunity to be at the forefront of the battle doing something tangible to make a difference to this challenge. I get to work alongside passionate people with a similar desire to step up and make a change. T&T has provided great opportunities to me through harnessing its underground natural resources and is at the cusp of being able to harness the above ground natural resources such as solar- and wind-power to complement our existing energy sector, this decision would put 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 so. T&T has transitioned the energy sector at least two times in the past 40 years and this occurred because people stepped up and delivered the change. I am hoping I can be one of the people who does this 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 back then—cricket and oil.
“I was passionate about these two things, and did my best to keep the twin fires alight. Eventually, my mother’s voice won out as she used to drum it to me, “Cricket can’t earn you a living, time to give that up.” Maybe in this decade that statement would be different with the advent of the IPL and T20 cricket leagues around the globe but back then 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 doctorate levels, 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.
“Recognising the potential research opportunities, I chose to continue with a solar energy PhD 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. Shortly after, the fossil fuel electricity sector became my professional entrepot, enhancing my sight and understanding of the existing energy ecosystem. This experience that would shape my energy world view,” he elaborated.
From then on, he joined the Energy Chamber’s Energy Efficiency and Alternate Energy Committee.
“This remains one of the best professional decisions I have ever made. Membership and collaboration would coalesce the knowledge and experience from multiple energy value chains to a compelling analytical singularity,” he said.
In 2019, he was given leadership of the committee which is now called the Decarbonisation Taskforce.
He commanded the Chamber’s work of advocacy and analysis has aided Trinidad and Tobago’s energy transition—from lobbying for natural gas to be moved to a higher value chain by promoting renewables and energy efficiency to hydrogen.
“I offered the idea to the group of using inefficiencies of the power sector to produce carbon neutral power for hydrogen production. This was debated and eventually solidified by the advent of Kenesjay Green (KGL) and the NewGen Hydrogen project whose founder, Philip Julien, served on the committee as well. This represents a major win, not only for our group, but also for the energy transition of T&T,” he said.
HDF’s Future
For HDF Energy, the number one priority is delivery of the NewGen project.
“This project has been one of the leading large scale hydrogen projects internationally and caught the attention of HDF due to its unique features such as ability to use the benefits of the Point Lisas energy cluster. Not many places in the world have a setup like Point Lisas with plants in close proximity to one another allowing for better energy utilisation through energy efficient upgrades on existing power plants and with a solar power plant earmarked to be built close by as well. A lot of projects globally are being announced but none has advanced as far as this one on these three major areas: hydrogen certification, technical and environmental all at once,” he explained.
He pointed out that the project’s proposed hydrogen production has been reviewed and certified by TUV Rheinland as having a low carbon footprint.
As it stands:
1. The project launched its tender for engineering, procurement and construction contract last November and is expected to select one by April 2023.
2. NewGen received the final Terms of Reference for its 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 a lot of work to do to make this a reality. There are a couple areas that need to be navigated expertly but quickly to ensure we continue to lead the pack. The power sector was developed over the last four decades mainly to meet the needs of the rapidly expanding downstream energy sector and at that time efficient gas utilisation or GHG emissions were not a huge issue but within the last decade it has become major issues and hence the need to utilise existing waste heat from the power sector has become necessary, this upgrade in the power sector is a key tenet of the NewGen project and hence for the project to progress quickly a decision to upgrade has to be timely.
“The second area of drawing attention is the environmental permitting process, and this is so globally, since permitting processes everywhere have not been designed for process plants such as NewGen where it produces no 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 would have the benefit of accelerated development,” he said.
For now, the short-term strategy is getting NewGen built and operational as quickly as possible, so that in the medium term a pipeline of projects in T&T can be developed along with its partner KGL based on a defined pathway for success.