In our January episode of Ammonia Project Features, we explored the current commercial status of solid oxide electrolysis, and its potential to be integrated with ammonia production. Rick Beuttel (Bloom Energy) and Jakob Krummenacher (LSB industries) also discussed the utilization of the technology in a new decarbonization project at LSB’s ammonia plant in Pryor, Oklahoma.
Hyphen Hydrogen Energy has signed off-take MoUs with a major chemical company and South Korean hydrogen producer Approtium bringing the total off-take for their Namibian mega-project to just over one million tonnes of renewable ammonia each year. Also in Namibia, Fortescue Future Industries will support the early stages of the new Daures Green Hydrogen Village project.
As part of the HyEx project, Mitsui & Co., Toyo Engineering and Enaex will develop a solar-powered, 18,000 tonnes-per-year renewable ammonia plant in Tocopilla, northern Chile. Just outside of Tocopilla, Sumitomo and Chilean transmission utility Colbún have teamed up to explore renewable ammonia production & export. The pair will also assess million-tonne-per-year production in Chile’s south. Also in South America, Proton Ventures have contracted Fitchner to assess the feasibility of planned renewable production projects.
ATCO Australia’s ScaleH2 ammonia export project in NSW will receive funding from both the Australian and German governments. Feasibility work will begin on the 800,000 tonnes-per-year ammonia plant, also being developed by NSW Powerfuels. The announcement comes as the two-year HySupply project released its final report, and a new government-level MoU was signed to develop an export supply chain from Australia to Rotterdam.
ACWA Power and the Uzbek government will jointly develop a pilot-scale renewable hydrogen facility, which is to be integrated with an existing ammonia & fertilizer plant outside the country’s capital Tashkent. The pair will also explore the feasibility of a 500,000 tonnes per year renewable ammonia facility in the Central Asian country.
Electrolysis-based ammonia production peaked worldwide around 1970, before the economies of scale and cheap gas feedstock led to its decline. With decarbonization and climate-neutral industrial processes now a critical priority, electrolysis-based ammonia production has re-emerged as a long-term solution. From a base of 10,000 tonnes per year worldwide production in 2020, as much as 100 million tonnes per year of electrolysis-based ammonia could be produced by the end of this decade, driven by a dramatic roll-out of renewable energy generation and installed electrolyzer capacity.
Topse & Mintal Hydrogen will develop a dynamic, renewable ammonia plant in Baotou, China. Similar to Topsoe’s project in Skovgaard (Denmark), the electrolyser plant in Baotou will be directly connected to renewable energy generation, with production to begin in 2025.
Shell will acquire a 35% stake and operatorship of the Green Energy Oman (GEO) project, a 25 GW renewable ammonia supergiant under development on the Oman coast. The news is the latest in a series of ammonia energy announcements from the oil & gas majors.
This week we explore three mega-scale production projects planned for Texas. On the Gulf Coast, Avina Clean Hydrogen is developing a 100% renewable-powered ammonia plant. In northern Texas, Air Products and AES are planning a 1.4 GW wind & solar-powered hydrogen production facility targeting the heavy trucking market, and in Beaumont OCI has just broken ground on its new million-tonne-per-year CCS ammonia plant.
Trinidad & Tobago’s National Energy Corporation, the Inter-American Development Bank and KBR have released their findings on how to establish a market for renewable hydrogen in the Caribbean country. Underpinned by a stepwise development of 57 GW of offshore wind power potential, the country could completely displace fossil-based hydrogen with renewable hydrogen in 2052. The 4 million tonnes-per-year production potential would meet industrial demands and lay the foundation for a significant export industry, potentially transforming Trinidad & Tobago into a global energy hub.