Hydrogen and cleantech consulting · Jamie Frew, PhD MBA
Making decarbonisation projects bankable
The easy renewables are financed. What is left is first-of-a-kind, and first-of-a-kind projects die on the numbers, not the technology.
Get in touch What I dotechno-economic modelling · due diligence · pilot-to-plant scale-up
01 · The problem
The last 10% is a different business
The straightforward 90% is a solved commercial problem. Building renewables where the sun shines and the wind blows now has comparables, standard contracts and a queue of capital waiting for it.
The last 10% is not like that. Firming, long-duration storage, green molecules and genuinely 24/7 industrial power are where the remaining emissions sit, and none of them have a hundred built examples to price against. There is a gap between a pilot that works and a plant a bank will lend against, and most good ideas stop there.
That gap is rarely technical. It is that somebody has to put a number on a thing nobody has built, and then defend it to people whose job is to find the hole in it. No operating history, no comparables, and a supply chain whose prices move faster than the study does.
Taking a technology from pilot to plant is the specific problem I work on: building the number, testing someone else's number, and steering a first-of-a-kind project through the stages between "this should work" and "we are funding it".
If a project had comparables, it would not need me.
02 · Services
Five ways I am usually brought in
Techno-economic modelling and bankability
Hourly dispatch and sizing models, LCOH and LCOE, capex and opex build-ups, and the bankability outputs a lender actually asks for: debt sizing, DSCR profile, cash sweep, equity bridge. Built in Python and in spreadsheets constructed to the FAST standard, so the workings are open to inspection rather than buried in a black box.
Typical: sizing electrolysis and storage against a real wind and solar profile; rebuilding a business case nobody trusts; giving a bid team a model it can defend line by line.
Technical and commercial due diligence
Independent assessment of projects and technologies for investors, lenders and corporate venture teams. What the technology can actually do, what it will actually cost, and which assumptions the case is resting on without saying so.
Typical: a green hydrogen or e-fuels portfolio ahead of an investment decision; a second opinion on a developer's model; a technology assessment before a venture cheque.
Scale-up: pilot to plant
The stage where most new energy technology stalls. Technology qualification and concept selection, stage-gate design and evidence requirements, supplier and procurement strategy, and getting a first-of-a-kind package to the point where an engineering contractor and a lender will both take it seriously.
Typical: choosing between competing technologies on evidence rather than enthusiasm; designing the test programme that answers the question the investment committee will ask; taking a demonstrator to industrial scale.
Programme and project management
Delivery of complex, technically innovative work inside real resource and timeline constraints. Bid and consortium leadership, governance across technical and commercial teams, structured risk identification, and the plain communication that keeps diverse stakeholders aligned on the next concrete step.
Typical: standing up a new business line inside a large project organisation; leading a consortium through a competitive tender; running concept selection on a GW-scale procurement.
Business development: helping suppliers find their market
Twenty-five years across the energy supply chain leave a detailed map of who is building what, where the money is coming from, and what buyers actually screen for. I use that map on behalf of equipment and technology suppliers: which projects and segments to target, how to position against incumbents, and how to get through a developer's qualification process rather than stall in it.
This is the buyer's side of the table turned to your advantage. Having specified, qualified and procured hydrogen and battery equipment for real projects, I know what a credible offer looks like from the inside, and I can shape yours so it survives the screening.
Typical: a market-entry plan for a new electrolyser or storage product; introducing a proven OEM to developers who have never heard of it; building the qualification evidence pack a procurement team will accept.
03 · AI
Working with the latest AI
I am working with the most advanced models and can deliver at a pace not previously possible using a rigorous methodology. If your project needs industry knowledge combined with the latest AI advances, I'd be happy to take your call.
Industry knowledge, delivered at AI pace.
04 · Selected outcomes
What that has produced
Cut the levelised cost of hydrogen by more than 50% on a first-of-a-kind solar and wind to hydrogen project, from concept through techno-economic modelling to procurement design.
Identified more than $60M of savings inside a $2bn+ hydrogen programme by challenging legacy concept selections and procurements.
Advised on more than €2bn of EU Innovation Fund and IPCEI submissions, across 50 to 400 MW of electrolysis, covering structuring, emissions accounting, financing and EU compliance.
Enabled more than €200M of investment through technical and financial due diligence on green hydrogen, ammonia and bio-based fuel projects across 4 countries.
Found suppliers offering more than 60% capex savings against European OEMs on hydrogen and battery generation equipment, and procured the first systems.
Recommended against numerous technologies and business cases that could not produce the evidence for a technically and commercially viable proposition. Saying no early is a great deal cheaper than finding out at FID.
figures are from delivered work · clients are not named
I have also been on the other side of it
I invented and patented HyFloat, a floating offshore foundation that produces and stores renewable hydrogen at sea. It was tank-tested at MARIN, selected by PortXL, backed by three Dutch MIT innovation grants, won a UK Net-Zero Technology Centre competition, and reached the finals of both Techstars–Equinor and Ørsted Propel. I know what raising money for a first-of-a-kind technology actually feels like, because I have done it for my own.
05 · About Jamie
- PhD Industrial Chemistry, St Andrews
- MBA (Finance), RSM
- FAST modelling standard
- Hydrogen since 2017
- 25 years, 40+ countries
Commercial acumen backed by deep scientific knowledge
That combination is unusual, and it's why clients call. I can read the science, build the model, and then sit in the room where the money is decided. Too many good ideas fail to become businesses because no one who understands the science looks at the finance, and no one who understands the finance understands the physical fundamentals.
I hold a PhD in industrial chemistry from the University of St Andrews and an MBA with a finance specialisation from Rotterdam School of Management, and I am trained to the FAST financial modelling standard.
Since 2017 the work has been hydrogen. Most recently that was NEOM in Saudi Arabia, where I led strategy for a new off-grid hydrogen business line with a capital budget over $2bn and built the concept-selection process and technology test programme behind it. Before that, running 12 TO ZERO, I advised on more than €2bn of EU Innovation Fund and IPCEI submissions and ran technical and financial due diligence on green hydrogen, ammonia and bio-based fuel projects for investors. At Air Liquide I led the company's engagement in H-vision, the joint industry project targeting megatonne-scale carbon reduction in the Port of Rotterdam cluster, pioneered business development for ELYgator, a 200 MW green hydrogen project, and led a bid for a hydrogen and oxygen supply contract worth more than €3bn.
The years before that were spent introducing new technology into industrial operations that do not tolerate surprises. At Schlumberger in Aberdeen I ran a $20M-a-year account and took a new technology through to commercialisation, work that won a Schlumberger technology prize. At Halliburton in Jakarta I introduced new products into service delivery for Indonesia's national oil company, and was recognised for the business impact of the technology programme behind it. Same problem as today, in a different sector: proving an unfamiliar technology to a buyer with a great deal to lose.
I have lived and worked in more than 40 countries, and I write on energy transition strategy on LinkedIn.
06 · Contact
Let's talk
Most engagements start with a short call to scope the question and check the fit. If the answer is that you do not need me, I will say so on the call.
Book a 30-minute call Or email me