India-headed ACME Group has recently announced the signing of a land agreement to set up one of the world’s largest green ammonia projects at the Special Economic Zone (SEZ) at Duqm Port in Oman. The agreement was signed with the Public Authority for Special Economic Zones and Free Zones (OPAZ), a Government authority of Oman.
ACME Group is the largest solar energy operator in India and has built a solar portfolio of 6 GWp. Of this, the company currently holds a portfolio of 5.25 GWp that includes 2.2 GWp of operational capacity and another 3.05 GWp is under construction spread across 12 states in India.
In March 2021, The Oman Company for the Development of the Special Economic Zone at Duqm (Tatweer) and ACME Group signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to set up a large-scale facility to produce green hydrogen and green ammonia.
The plant will be an integrated facility using 3 GWp of solar and 0.5 GWp of wind energy to produce 2 400 tonnes-per-day (TPD) of green ammonia with an annual production of approximately 0.9 million tonnes.
This would be the first facility of this scale to be operational by 2022. The facility is being built to export green ammonia to demand centres like Europe and Asia with an investment of approximately US$3.5 billion.
Clean energy investment strategy
Yahiya bin Khamis Al Zedjali, in charge of managing operations of the Special Economic Zone at Duqm (SEZAD) said that under the agreement, ACME will be conducting field studies of the project in the first phase that include installing anemometers to measure wind speed in Duqm and weather station for the purpose of surveys and data collection.
The signing of the agreement comes in the context of the Authority’s plan to promote investment in the field of clean energy through the production of green hydrogen and ammonia from renewable energy, and to enhance its use in various fields such as the transportation and manufacturing sectors along with other energy resources in the SEZ at Duqm.
For his part, Jalal bin Abdul Karim Al Lawati of the Public Authority for Special Economic Zones and Free Zones (OPAZ) pointed out that is currently negotiating with several international companies which expressed their desire to establish projects for the production of green hydrogen and ammonia in Duqm, Salalah, and Sohar.
He added that Duqm is the ideal region for attracting green hydrogen and ammonia projects considering the year-round high solar irradiation and wind resources, easy export and import through Duqm Port, coupled with a large amount of land, about 200 sq km allocated for renewable energy.
The first project under commissioning in India
In India, ACME Group is in the process of commissioning what it says is the world’s first integrated commercial-scale pilot plant for green hydrogen and green ammonia production.
Located in Bikaner, Rajasthan, green hydrogen will be produced using 5 MWp, expandable to 10 MWp, from the solar plant, which is an integral part of the project. Once commissioned the green ammonia plant will be producing 5 tonnes per day with an annual output of up to 1 800 tonnes of green fuel.
The signing of the land reservation agreement will allow us to kick-start pre-construction activities. We have hired environmental consultants and owner’s engineers Black & Veatch and we plan to start the construction in Oman as soon we commission our first green hydrogen and green ammonia plant at Bikaner in India. The plant in Oman would be developed in phases and the first phase is likely to be commissioned by end of 2022, said Manoj K. Upadhyay, Founder and Chairman, ACME Group.
