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Sustainable Energy for Wales: Tidal and Wind with Ammonia Storage

As part of the sustainable agenda of the UK, the government, research institutions and various enterprises have looked for options to reduce the carbon footprint of the country while ensuring energy independence for several years. As a response, one of the alternatives has been to introduce the use of marine energy via the implementation of a barrage in the Severn Estuary or the development and implementation of Tidal Lagoons located around the Welsh coast. From these alternatives, the tidal lagoon concept seems to be most feasible. Hybrid tidal and wind energy systems will produce vast amounts of energy during off-peak hours that will require the use of energy storage technologies - the size of each proposed tidal lagoon ranges close to ~1.5 GW. Currently, companies involved in the development of these complexes are thinking of batteries, pumped hydro, and ammonia as the potential candidates to provide storage for these vast amounts of energy.

Article

Ammonia-Hydrogen Energy Storage Highlighted in Australia

A new report from Australia identifies ammonia as a key part of a hydrogen-based high-volume energy storage system.  On November 20, Australia’s Council of Learned Academies (ACOLA) and its Chief Scientist released “The Role of Energy Storage in Australia’s Future Energy Supply Mix.”  In addition to hydrogen, the report covers pumped hydro, batteries, compressed air, and thermal systems.  Its rationale for including ammonia is starkly simple: “Hydrogen gas is difficult to transport due to its low density; instead, it is proposed that hydrogen is converted to ammonia for transport, and then converted back to hydrogen for use.”  Although an ultimate ranking of energy storage options is not provided, the hydrogen-ammonia combination arguably emerges as the best option in terms of economics, environmental and social impact, and deployability.

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Future of Ammonia Production: Improvement of Haber-Bosch Process or Electrochemical Synthesis?

Ammonia, the second most produced chemical in the world (176 million tons in 2014), is manufactured at large plants (1,000 – 1,500 t/day) using Haber-Bosch process developed more than hundred years ago. A simple reaction of nitrogen and hydrogen (produced by steam methane reforming or coal gasification) consumes about 2% of world energy, in part due to the use of high pressure and temperature. With the global transition from fossil fuels to intermittent renewable energy sources there is a need for long term storage and long range transmission of energy, for which ammonia is perfect fit. To make it practical,…

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Effect of Water on the Auto-Ignition of a Non-Carbon Nitrogen-Based Monofuel

The fluctuating nature of renewable energy sources is becoming a limiting factor in their widespread utilization. Energy storage solutions must be developed to overcome this issue. Chemical fuels are considered to be a promising solution to this problem. We are studying the implementation of nitrogen-based fuels for this purpose. An aqueous solution of ammonium nitrate and ammonium hydroxide (AAN) is suggested as a carbon-free nitrogen-based synthetic monofuel. This solution may serve as a renewable nitrogen-based synthetic hydrogen carrier since it is safe to store, transport and utilize. Since ammonium hydroxide (AH) and ammonium nitrate (AN) act as reducer and net…

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The Role of “Green” Ammonia in Decarbonising Energy Systems: Practical Demonstration and Economic Considerations

Ammonia has the potential to contribute significantly to the decarbonisation of energy systems, by offering a practical, carbon-free hydrogen storage and transportation vector as well as a green fuel in its own right. To better understand the prospects and challenges surrounding the use of ammonia in energy systems, Siemens is leading a collaborative project to build and test an ammonia-based energy storage system at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in the UK. Together with its project partners (the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council, the University of Oxford and the University of Cardiff), and supported by Innovate UK, Siemens will demonstrate…

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Dutch Initiatives to Store Sustainable Energy in the Form of Ammonia

Proton Ventures BV is a company dedicated to supply mini ammonia units for storing decentralised produced (sustainable) energy. Proton has developed a commercial unit for the production of small amounts of ammonia, which can store up to 25 MW of power or equivalent (bio-) gas energy. Hans Vrijenhoef, as the director of the company, will give an overview of existing plans in The Netherlands to store this decentralised energy and to make use of this in an economic way. The N-Fuel units will be skid-mounted, safe in operation, and almost fully automated in order to keep CAPEX and OPEX costs…

Article

The Ammonia Economy at the ACS National Meeting

The American Chemical Society (ACS) has published the program for its 2017 National Meeting, which takes place next month in Washington DC and includes a session dedicated to the "Ammonia Economy." The first day of the week-long meeting, Sunday August 20th, will feature a full morning of technical papers from the US, UK, and Japan, covering ammonia energy topics across three general areas: producing hydrogen from ammonia, developing new catalysts for ammonia synthesis and oxidation, and storing ammonia in solid chemical form.

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Decentralised ammonia production in the Netherlands

Our presentation will summarize the results of two government funded research projects Proton carried out over the last year. The presentation will give an overview of the Dutch power and chemicals (ammonia) markets. We will start by including a brief history of both markets, current trends and foreseen problems. We propose that electrification of the chemical industry will solve the anticipated problems.

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Ammonia for Green Energy Storage and Beyond

Siemens is participating in an all electric ammonia synthesis and energy storage system demonstration programme at Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, near Oxford. The demonstrator, which will run until December 2017, is supported by Innovate UK. Collaborators include the University of Oxford, Cardiff University and the Science & Technology Facilities Council.

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Electro-Synthesis of Ammonia for Grid Scale Energy Storage

Ceramatec Inc., in partnership with its partners, will develop a lower temperature and higher efficiency membrane process to synthesize ammonia for energy storage. Ammonia (NH3) is carbon-free, has a high energy density (>4 kW/l), which enables many hours of energy storage from large renewable power projects in small areas, and can be back converted to electricity using turbines or fuel cells at high efficiency. Ammonia synthesis is currently carried out in very large Haber-Bosch plants, mostly fueled from natural gas. The current large-scale Haber-Bosch (H-B) technology needs to run at constant inputs of energy and reactants. Moreover, ammonia is an…