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Article

Renewable Energy for Industry: IEA's vision for green ammonia as feedstock, fuel, and energy trade

Trevor Brown November 10, 2017

This morning in Beijing, China, the International Energy Agency (IEA) launched a major new report with a compelling vision for ammonia's role as a "hydrogen-rich chemical" in a low-carbon economy. Green ammonia would be used by industry "as feedstock, process agent, and fuel," and its production from electrolytic hydrogen would spur the commercial deployment of "several terawatts" of new renewable power. These terawatts would be for industrial markets, additional to all prior estimates of renewable deployment required to serve electricity markets. At this scale, renewable ammonia would, by merit of its ease of storage and transport, enable renewable energy trading across continents. The IEA's report, Renewable Energy for Industry, will be highlighted later this month at the COP23 in Bonn, Germany, and is available now from the IEA's website.

Presentation

Design Optimization of a Distributed Ammonia Generation System

Matthew Palys Alon McCormick Prodromos Daoutidis

Distributed ammonia generation located near farms is a promising alternative to the current practice of large-scale, centralized production. This production mode would reduce the need for transportation of ammonia over long distances currently caused by the mismatch between production and consumption locations. In addition, a small-scale ammonia synthesis process could more easily take advantage of distributed power generation based on wind or sunlight to reduce energy costs and lessen the dependence on fossil fuels. Distributed, renewables-based fertilizer production would largely insulate farmers against market uncertainty while also increasing the sustainability of the agricultural supply chain. However, a technically proven, economically…

Presentation

Lower Pressure Ammonia Synthesis

Mahdi Malmali Alon McCormick Edward Cussler Joshua Prince Michael Reese

Ammonia is a very important chemical, mainly produced through the Haber-Bosch process. This process requires high temperature (>400 °C) and pressure (>150 bar) in order to ensure fast kinetics and high conversions, respectively.1 As a result, ammonia synthesis is known to be very complex and energy-intensive.2 To alleviate the complexity and energy requirements of ammonia synthesis, and to reduce the CO2 emissions, we are proposing an innovative reaction-absorption process to synthesize carbon-free ammonia in small plants.3 This green ammonia can be synthesized in wind-powered plants, with hydrogen from electrolysis of water and nitrogen from pressure swing adsorption of air.4 In…

Presentation

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

Ian Wilkinson

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…

Article

Power to Ammonia: alternative synthesis technologies

Trevor Brown June 01, 2017

The Institute for Sustainable Process Technology (ISPT) recently published a detailed analysis of three business cases for producing renewable ammonia from electricity: Power to Ammonia. The feasibility study concludes that, in the near term, ammonia production using clean electricity will likely rely on a combination of two old-established, proven technologies: electrolysis and Haber-Bosch (E-HB). To reach this conclusion, however, the study also assessed a range of alternative technologies, which I summarize in this article.

Article

The Hydrogen Consensus

Stephen H. Crolius April 27, 2017

Let’s say there is such a thing as the “hydrogen consensus.” Most fundamentally, the consensus holds that hydrogen will be at the center of the sustainable energy economy of the future. By definition, hydrogen from fossil fuels will be off the table. Hydrogen from biomass will be on the table but the amount that can be derived sustainably will be limited by finite resources like land and water. This will leave a yawning gap (in the U.S., 60-70% of total energy consumption) that will be filled with the major renewables -- wind, solar, and geothermal -- and nuclear energy. This may be as far as the consensus goes today, but more detail is now emerging on the global system of production and use that could animate a hydrogen economy.

Article

IEA calls for renewable hydrogen and carbon-free ammonia

Trevor Brown April 21, 2017

This week, an important new voice joined the chorus of support for renewable ammonia and its potential use as an energy vector - the International Energy Agency (IEA). In his article, Producing industrial hydrogen from renewable energy, Cédric Philibert, Senior Energy Analyst at the IEA, identifies a major problem with the hydrogen economy: hydrogen is currently made from fossil fuels. But his argument for producing hydrogen from renewable energy leads almost inevitably to ammonia: "In some not-too-distant future, ammonia could be used on its own as a carbon-free fuel or as an energy carrier to store and transport energy conveniently."

Article

Power to Ammonia feasibility study

Trevor Brown March 31, 2017

The Institute for Sustainable Process Technology has just published a feasibility study that represents a major step toward commercializing renewable ammonia. It examines the "value chains and business cases to produce CO2-free ammonia," analysing the potential for commercial deployment at three companies with existing sites in The Netherlands: Nuon at Eemshaven, Stedin at Goeree-Overflakkee, and OCI Nitrogen at Geleen. The project is called Power to Ammonia.

Article

Ammonia for energy storage: a "revolutionary disruption"

Trevor Brown March 16, 2017

A recent opinion piece in The Japan Times predicts a "revolutionary disruption coming to the energy sector," and suggests that using ammonia for energy storage will prove to be "a game-changer at least on the scale of the shale oil and gas revolution."

Article

Ammonia for energy storage: economic and technical analysis

Trevor Brown March 02, 2017

Developers around the world are looking at using ammonia as a form of energy storage, essentially turning an ammonia storage tank into a very large chemical battery. In the UK, Siemens is building an "all electric ammonia synthesis and energy storage system." In the Netherlands, Nuon is studying the feasibility of using Power-to-Ammonia "to convert high amounts of excess renewable power into ammonia, store it and burn it when renewable power supply is insufficient." While results from Siemens could be available in 2018, it might be 2021 before we see results from Nuon, whose "demonstration facility is planned to be completed in five years." But, while we wait for these real-world industrial data, the academic literature has just been updated with a significant new study on the design and performance of a grid-scale ammonia energy storage system.