Alaa Yahia Faid
Energy transition project leader and technology advisor. Full-lifecycle delivery of utility-scale renewables, BESS and hydrogen projects, backed by four years of supermajor-scale technology governance informing €6B in CAPEX decisions.
Cairo, Egypt / Bergen, Norway · PhD, PMP · Serving governments, utilities, DFIs and developers
Engineering judgement, applied to capital decisions.
I lead energy transition projects and advise on the technology decisions inside them: what to build, whose equipment to buy, what it will cost to run, and whether the business case survives contact with the engineering.
Through Nexus Analytica I provide full-lifecycle project management and owner's engineering for utility-scale solar PV, wind, BESS and hydrogen projects across Egypt, MENA and Africa, working with governments, utilities, development finance institutions, private developers and industrial off-takers.
That builds on four years at Equinor leading technology qualification and investment due diligence for low-carbon projects, where my work informed roughly €6B of CAPEX decisions and more than €50M of venture investment. I led a cross-functional team of ten with a €2.5M annual budget.
The underlying qualification is a doctorate in electrochemistry. In practice that means I can independently challenge an OEM or licensor package rather than take its performance claims on trust, which is usually where owner-side value is won or lost.
What I am engaged to do.
Owner-side project delivery and technology assurance, from concept through FEED and EPC to commissioning and provisional acceptance.
Project delivery & lifecycle
Project management consultancy across concept, FEED, EPC, commissioning and PAC. Schedule analysis, manpower benchmarking, procurement risk and master plan governance.
Owner's engineering & assurance
Owner-side technology assurance, OEM and EPC qualification, supplier benchmarking, and independent challenge of vendor and licensor packages.
Utility-scale solar & wind
Delivery and advisory for utility-scale solar PV and wind, including yield, technology selection and plant-level technical review.
Storage & grid integration
Battery storage technology selection, sizing and dispatch strategy, and integration into renewable-plus-storage project architecture.
Electrolysis & green hydrogen
PEM, alkaline and SOEC systems at stack and system level. Technology qualification, integration with water treatment, compression, storage and downstream use.
Reforming & blue hydrogen
SMR, ATR and POX pathways, gas treatment, water-gas shift, hydrogen purification and carbon capture integration.
e-Fuels & methanol
Green and blue methanol pathways, synthesis reactor and catalyst evaluation, licensor comparison, and sustainable aviation fuel routes.
Industrial decarbonisation
H₂-DRI and green steel value chains, process heat demand, off-gas utilisation and low-carbon utilities for hard-to-abate sectors.
Technoeconomics & due diligence
CAPEX and OPEX modelling, LCOH and LCOE, TRL and MRL assessment, investment and venture technical due diligence, portfolio screening.
Scale, scope and contribution.
Figures are the scale of the projects and portfolios worked on and the decisions they informed, not personal revenue. Technoeconomic scope covers both CAPEX and OPEX through to LCOH and LCOE.
Utility-scale solar PV, Egypt
Owner's engineer project management for solar PV development in the New Valley region: technology assurance, supplier benchmarking and risk management.
- Scale
- Multi-hundred MW
- Role
- Owner's engineer, PM
- Clients
- Developers, utilities
Green hydrogen & e-methanol
Owner-side technology governance across an electrolysis and e-methanol portfolio: electrolyser qualification, licensor and catalyst assessment, and FEED scope under ISO 22734 and ASME Section VIII.
Aldbrough Hydrogen Pathfinder · Humber Hydrogen Hub · Green Hub Tjeldbergodden
- Scale
- 35 to 100 MW
- CAPEX
- ~€1B portfolio
- Result
- 30% CAPEX cut, benchmarked cases
Blue hydrogen & hard-to-abate
Hydrogen production technology assessment across SMR, ATR, POX and advanced reforming, with licensor package review, carbon capture integration and H₂-DRI steel pathways.
Clean Hydrogen to Europe · Mongstad Industrial Transformation · ēQATOR
- Scale
- 0.6 to 2 GW
- CAPEX
- ~€6B portfolio
- Result
- 10% efficiency gain at concept
Technology & venture due diligence
Technical and competitiveness due diligence across hydrogen and emerging fuels startups, benchmarking startup KPIs against industrial baselines, and leading first-of-a-kind pilot campaigns for reforming and electrolysis.
- Portfolio
- 20+ companies screened
- Investment
- €50M+ informed
- Scope
- FOAK pilots, scale-up validation
Strategy, roadmaps & market entry
Corporate strategy and market-entry analysis: a green hydrogen white paper aligning strategy with policy and technology maturity, a mineral value chain appraisal, and a methane pyrolysis readiness assessment. Co-developed a green hydrogen roadmap for the Suez Canal Economic Zone under a UNIDO mandate.
- Opportunity
- €1B appraisal supported
- Mandate
- UNIDO, SCZone roadmap
- Audience
- Executive, government
Programme leadership
Led a cross-functional team responsible for technology qualification and investment due diligence across the low-carbon portfolio, including budget ownership and cross-business-area coordination.
- Team
- 10 cross-functional
- Budget
- €2.5M annual
- Remit
- Qualification, investment DD
Experience and credentials.
Project Manager Consultant
Technology Project Lead
Energy Transition Consultant
Doctoral and Postdoctoral Researcher
MSc Research Assistant
Project Management Professional (PMP)
Hydrogen Energy Consultant, Expert
Business Case Development and Innovation Implementation
Entrepreneurship: Launching an Innovative Business
PhD, Materials Science and Engineering
Erasmus Mundus exchange
MSc, Metallurgical Engineering
BEng, Metallurgical Engineering
Innovation Project Evaluator
Corporate representative, ISO
Guest lecturer and thesis examiner
HySchool Days, Bergen
Peer-reviewed publication record
What clients ask before engaging.
Short answers to the questions that come up most often at the start of an owner's engineering or due diligence mandate.
What does an owner's engineer do on a renewable energy project?
The owner's engineer protects the owner's technical interest against the EPC contractor and suppliers: scope definition before tender, bid evaluation on engineering merit rather than headline price, design review at each gate, witnessing acceptance testing, and verifying performance guarantees at handover.
When should a developer bring in an independent technology advisor?
Earlier than most do. Cost is set at concept and pre-FEED while technology and configuration are still open. Benchmarking at that stage produced a 30 per cent CAPEX reduction in benchmarked cases; the same exercise after FID produces nothing.
What is included in technology due diligence for an investor?
Four questions. Does it perform as claimed on measured data? How mature is it against a defensible TRL and MRL framework? What does it cost at commercial scale, including the OPEX and degradation the pitch deck omits? And what must hold for the scale-up path to work?
What is the difference between green and blue hydrogen?
Green splits water in an electrolyser on renewable power, so carbon intensity follows the electricity. Blue reforms natural gas with the CO₂ captured and stored. Green economics turn on power price and electrolyser CAPEX; blue on gas price, capture rate and CO₂ transport and storage.
How is an electrolyser supplier qualified before FID?
By testing claims against evidence: stack performance and degradation over meaningful operating hours, balance-of-plant integration, manufacturing capacity against the programme, compliance with ISO 22734 and the relevant pressure codes, and warranty terms. Degradation rate matters more than day-one efficiency.
What drives the levelised cost of hydrogen?
For green, electricity price and load factor, then electrolyser CAPEX and stack replacement. For blue, gas price and capture rate, with CO₂ transport and storage close behind. The usual error is comparing LCOH figures without normalising the assumptions, which move the answer more than the technology does.
Two hubs, two energy systems.
A desert-solar and gas economy at one end, a hydropower, offshore wind and CCS economy at the other.
Egypt, MENA and Africa. Utility-scale solar, wind and BESS, green hydrogen and ammonia schemes, and advisory to governments, utilities, DFIs and developers.
- Coordinates
- 30.0444° N, 31.2357° E
- Time zone
- UTC+2 (UTC+3 DST)
Norway, the Nordics and Europe. Offshore wind, hydropower-backed electrification, low-carbon hydrogen with CCS, and cross-border CO₂ and hydrogen chains.
- Coordinates
- 60.3913° N, 5.3221° E
- Time zone
- UTC+1 (UTC+2 DST)
Discuss a project.
Available for owner's engineering, technology assurance, due diligence and project management mandates. Arabic, English and Norwegian.