Haldor Topsøe and Green Fuel team up in Iceland

Topsøe and newcomer Green Fuel will join forces to identify efficient and scalable technologies to produce green ammonia in Iceland. The two will also explore business opportunities for the green ammonia product, with a focus on the hard-to-abate sectors of heavy road transport, shipping and agriculture.

Topsøe is a well-established player in the ammonia energy space, while Green Fuel is an Icelandic startup that is majority-owned by UK-based ATOME Energy. For its part, ATOME is in the Ammonia Energy headlines this week with plans for hydro-powered hydrogen & ammonia production in Paraguay.

“Iceland offers large-scale volumes of the renewable power needed from its vast hydro and geothermal resources, and we see an exciting potential for the production of clean fuels”.

Tore Sylvester Jeppesen, Senior Vice President at Topsoe in the official press release, 17 Nov 2021

Icelandic e-fuels, utilising the oxygen by-product of electrolysis

A coalition of organisations is also working on a new green energy park in the town of Reyðarfjörður on Iceland’s east coast. National utility Landsvirkjun, Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP) and the municipality of Fjarðabyggð were recently joined by Icelandic organisations Atmonia, Síldarvinnslan, and Laxar. Electrolysis & e-fuels production seems to be a major focus of the new plan, with electrolysis by-product oxygen to be utilised for aquaculture:

The objective is to explore how the production of green e-fuel can facilitate energy transition in the Icelandic sectors of fisheries, shipping and haulage. In addition, production of carbon-neutral fertilizer and the use of oxygen (a by-product) for fish-farming on land will be explored. Furthermore, the benefits of utilizing waste heat from thee-fuel production for heating houses in Reyðarfjörður, one of few communities in Iceland that does not enjoy geothermal district heating, will be assessed.

Three Companies Join in the Development of a Green Energy Park in Reyðarfjörður, 13 Oct 2021

More from Iceland in 2021

Iceland’s abundance of continuous-output renewable energy resources is attracting significant interest in the hydrogen & ammonia space. In 2021 we’ve seen:

• Icelandic national power organisation Landsvirkjun and the Port of Rotterdam wrap-up a promising feasibility study looking at green hydrogen exports from Iceland,
• Landsvirkjun present plans for a 10 MW hydro-powered electrolysis facility at Ljósifoss power station (enough fuel production to power Reykjavík’s entire public transportation fleet), and
• GenCell Energy successfully demonstrate the long-term operation of its off-grid, ammonia-fed, integrated alkaline fuel cell stationary power generation system.