With installation and testing of ammonia fuel equipment now complete, a 20% ammonia co-firing demonstration will proceed from April to June this year at the Hekinan power plant. JERA and IHI aim for commercial operations to begin around March 2025. JERA is also exploring part ownership and offtake from Exxon Mobil’s CCS ammonia mega-project in Baytown, Texas.
Based on Topsoe’s H2RETAKE™ technology, an ammonia cracking facility owned and run by Approtium will be built in Ulsan, South Korea. Approtium has already secured a supply of ammonia via an offtake agreement signed with Hyphen Hydrogen.
GE Vernova and IHI Corporation will proceed to the engineering and testing phase for their ammonia gas turbine roadmap for Asia. Based on their efforts in 2022 to demonstrate a low-N2O combustor for a 2 MW, 100% ammonia-fired turbine, IHI will lead development of a two-stage combustor for larger-scale gas turbine models.
In a 4-year partnership, PTT Global Chemical will collaborate with MHI to explore the feasibility of a large scale carbon neutral petrochemical complex in Thailand, powered by low-carbon hydrogen and ammonia-fueled gas turbines.
As another year passes, AEA President Hans Vrijenhoef looks back on the successes of the year just past. Ammonia energy is now firmly on the radar in Europe - including the first projects dedicated to power generation. And, with so many import/export projects underway, now is the time to collaborate and kick start the growth of the industry.
8 Rivers will develop the 880,000 tonnes-per-year production facility in Port Arthur, Texas. Utilizing its proprietary 8RH2 hydrogen production process - where captive CO2 molecules are continuously recycled and utilized - 8 Rivers plans to produce ammonia for local use & export markets, including power generation in South Korea.
MHI has successfully combustion-tested its ammonia single-fuel burners. The tests confirmed that the burners are capable of complete and stable combustion, producing reduced NOx emissions relative to coal firing. The test will now be run at a larger scale to simulate actual operations.
To power its global HQ and key manufacturing complex in Hiroshima, Mazda plans to completely substitute the fuel supply at MCM Energy Service coal power plant away from coal by 2035, enabling “power generation based solely on the combustion of liquid ammonia”. The fuel switch is part of a broader strategy to achieve carbon neutrality across global operations by 2035.
Centrica Energy, Bord Gáis Energy and Mitsubishi Power will explore the development of Europe's first ammonia-fired power generation facility, based on the existing Whitegate power plant in Cork.
