Glossary
The words a hydrogen certification file is written in.
Every term below is defined in plain English and says where the definition comes from. Where a scheme publishes no threshold, this page says so rather than filling the gap.
Electricity qualification
These terms decide whether the electricity behind your hydrogen counts as renewable for an EU claim.
- Additionality
The requirement that the renewable electricity behind RFNBO hydrogen comes from installations that would not have existed anyway. It is not a fixed age test on the renewable asset: whether commissioning timing is compared at all depends on which legal electricity route the project claims.
Source: EU Delegated Regulation 2023/1184, Articles 3 to 7. The claimed route decides whether a commissioning comparison applies. HyGOAT publishes no month window here, because no benchmark registry row yet quotes Article 5 directly.
- Temporal Correlation
Matching the timing of hydrogen production against the timing of the renewable generation claimed for it. Monthly matching applies now, and hourly matching applies from 2030-01-01.
Source: ISCC EU RFNBOs Pre-Certification Guidance v1.1, valid from 2026-03-27, which records the correlation logic as monthly moving to hourly from 2030-01-01.
See alsoGeographic Correlation- Geographic Correlation
The requirement that the renewable installation and the hydrogen plant sit in the same electricity bidding zone, or in an interconnected zone that qualifies. Outside the EU a producer may rely on an equivalent concept, which is often the national grid where no bidding zones exist.
Source: The same-zone rule is set by EU Delegated Regulation 2023/1184, Article 4. Recital 3 and Article 2 of the same regulation allow third countries to use a concept equivalent to the EU bidding zone, which is the registered row below.
See alsoTemporal Correlation- PPA
Power Purchase Agreement, a contract to buy electricity from a named generator over a long term. For an RFNBO claim the contract has to name the installations whose electricity is claimed, and it carries the claim only alongside correlation and attribute evidence.
Source: EU Delegated Regulation 2023/1184, Articles 4 and 5. In India a virtual PPA maps onto this route only where renewable attributes transfer and the same correlation evidence exists.
- PPA Start Date
The date your renewable supply contract takes effect. It is a contract fact, not the trigger for transitional relief: relief under the additionality rules turns on when the hydrogen installation itself comes into operation, not on when the contract was signed.
Source: EU Delegated Regulation 2023/1184, Article 5. The transitional relief is keyed to the RFNBO installation coming into operation before 2028-01-01, not to the PPA signature date. Leave the field blank if your PPA is not final; additionality is then reported as pending.
See alsoAdditionality- GoO
Guarantee of Origin, a certificate proving a unit of electricity was renewable. It is transferred to the producer and cancelled so the renewable attribute is counted only once. Cancelling certificates does not by itself make separately bought grid power renewable.
Source: Where no Guarantee of Origin system exists, certification practice accepts an equivalent tracking instrument such as an I-REC, cancelled in the producer account. ISCC EU RFNBOs Pre-Certification Guidance v1.1.
See alsoPPA
Certification frameworks
These two schemes measure emissions on different lifecycle boundaries. Their thresholds are not comparable numbers on one scale.
- GHCI
Green Hydrogen Certification of India, the national scheme run by MNRE. It certifies hydrogen against a well-to-gate threshold of 2.0 kgCO2eq/kgH2, counting the facility own electricity and production emissions up to the factory gate.
Source: GHCI Framework S1.2, F.No. 353/69/2024-NT dated 29 Apr 2025. The scheme document is 353/69/2024-NT; the earlier 353/35/2022-NT is the Green Hydrogen Standard, not the scheme.
- RFNBO
Renewable Fuels of Non-Biological Origin, the EU category for hydrogen and its derivatives made from renewable electricity. Qualifying fuel must cut greenhouse gas emissions by at least 70% against the EU fossil comparator, measured well-to-wheel, so transport to the customer and end use are counted.
Source: EU Delegated Regulation 2023/1184 for electricity qualification and 2023/1185 for the emissions methodology. The saving is expressed against the 94 gCO2eq/MJ fossil comparator.
Carbon accounting
- System Boundary
The slice of the lifecycle counted when computing emissions intensity. GHCI counts emissions up to the factory gate, meaning the facility own electricity and production. RFNBO counts further, adding transport to the customer and end use where it applies. The same facility can pass one and fail the other.
Source: GHCI Framework S7 sets the well-to-gate boundary. RFNBO uses the well-to-wheel boundary of EU Delegated Regulation 2023/1185, Annex C, whose total-emissions formula carries every energy input through to end use.
See alsoGHG Intensity- GHG Intensity
Lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions divided by the mass of hydrogen, ammonia, or methanol produced. The number means nothing until you state which boundary it was measured on. Screening accepts your best engineering estimate; certification will want the figure a project lifecycle assessment produces.
Source: No single threshold applies; the value is judged against the boundary of the scheme you claim under. GHCI Framework S11.2 references ISO 19870 and ISO 14064 for the calculation methodology.
See alsoSystem Boundary- Mass Balance
The bookkeeping method that tracks certified and uncertified material through shared tanks, pipes, and processes. Physical mixing is allowed; what is controlled is that the certified quantity leaving never exceeds the certified quantity entering, so the same output cannot be claimed twice.
Source: Defined as the chain of custody model the EU voluntary schemes operate. No accuracy percentage is published for it: mass balance is enforced by scheme bookkeeping and audit, not by a numeric tolerance.
- CCS
Carbon Capture and Storage, capturing carbon dioxide from a production process and storing it underground instead of releasing it. It is the route used to lower the emissions of hydrogen made from natural gas.
Source: Standard industry definition. No capture rate is published in HyGOAT benchmark registries: rates are project specific, and neither the GHCI scheme nor the RFNBO framework screens fossil-derived hydrogen, so neither sets one.
See alsoSMR
Production technology
- Electrolysis
Splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen using electricity. Because the electricity is most of the input, the emissions of the hydrogen follow almost entirely from where that electricity came from.
Source: HyGOAT screening assumes an indicative electrolyser output in the industry range of 18 to 22 kg of hydrogen per MWh. That is an indicative planning figure, not a scheme requirement.
See alsoFaraday Efficiency- SMR
Steam Methane Reforming, the conventional way hydrogen is made today, by reacting natural gas with steam. Reported emissions sit in the range of 9 to 12 kgCO2eq per kg of hydrogen, which is why hydrogen made this way is the thing low emission routes are compared against.
Source: IEA Global Hydrogen Review gives the 9 to 12 range. HyGOAT screening uses 9.4 kgCO2eq/kgH2 as an indicative reference figure. That is not a legal comparator: RFNBO savings are calculated against the fossil comparator set in the regulation, currently 94 gCO2eq/MJ, not against this range.
See alsoCCS- Faraday Efficiency
The share of the electric charge passed through an electrolyser that actually ends up producing hydrogen, rather than being lost to side reactions or leakage current. It is an equipment performance measure, not a certification test.
Source: Standard electrochemistry definition. No threshold is published for it: neither the GHCI scheme nor the RFNBO framework sets a Faraday efficiency requirement, so it belongs in equipment specifications and performance guarantees.
See alsoElectrolysis
International reference
Industry terms you may meet in export conversations. HyGOAT does not screen against these frameworks.
- JCM
The Joint Crediting Mechanism, a bilateral scheme under which Japan partners with a host country on low carbon projects and shares the resulting emission reduction credits.
Source: Described from the mechanism as published by its Japanese government secretariat. No hydrogen intensity threshold for it is held in HyGOAT benchmark registries.
- CHPS
The Clean Hydrogen Portfolio Standard, an auction based system in South Korea obliging power producers to buy a set share of their hydrogen and ammonia from certified clean sources.
Source: Described from the standard as published by the Korean government. No intensity threshold for it is held in HyGOAT benchmark registries.
- NHS
The National Hydrogen Strategy of Singapore, the policy setting out how the country intends to import hydrogen and its derivatives and use them in power and industry.
Source: Described from the strategy as published by the Singapore government. No targets from it are held in HyGOAT benchmark registries.
Verification
- ACV
Accredited Carbon Verifier, the independent third party that checks a producer emissions data before a GHCI certificate is issued. Verifiers are accredited by BEE.
Source: GHCI Framework Definition 2.1 and S13 require verification by a BEE accredited agency. The expansion follows the live MNRE GHCI portal, which runs an Accredited Carbon Verifier workflow.
See alsoGHCI