Nuon – Power to Ammonia

In March 2016 the Dutch utility Nuon announced that it will study the possibility of storing “seasonal surplus” electricity from wind and solar in the form of ammonia. The study by Nuon and Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) is part of the project “Power to Ammonia.” The study will be conducted at Nuon’s Magnum power station. Magnum was commissioned in 2013 to run on a mixture of natural gas and biomass. Nuon’s aspiration is for the plant to eventually become part of a low-carbon generation system. The Power to Ammonia study will focus on producing and storing ammonia when electricity generated by wind and solar facilities is in over-supply, and convert the ammonia back into electricity when the opposite situation pertains.

The Institute for Sustainable Process Technology (ISPT) is serving as a project organizer and is providing an umbrella under which additional entities will assist in the research. These other entities include Stedin Infrastructure Services, Energy Research Center of the Netherlands, University of Twente, ammonia producer OCI Nitrogen, environmental consultant CE Delft, Akzo Nobel, and long-standing ammonia energy proponent Proton Ventures. Nuon is a subsidiary of Vattenfall, a multinational utility owned by the Swedish government.