In Denmark, the Danish Energy Agency's Energy Technology Development and Demonstration Program (EUDP) has awarded DKK 81 million (≈ EUR 10.9 million) to a dynamic green ammonia demo project managed by the three partners Skovgaard Invest, Vestas Wind Systems A/S (Vestas), and Haldor Topsoe A/S. The project aims at building a 10 MW green ammonia plant directly coupled to local wind and solar power generation and is expected to be operational by 2023, making it the world’s first plant of its kind.
Green ammonia, produced from renewable energy, is seen as an excellent marine fuel and fertilizer that can potentially replace significant volumes of fossil fuels and help accelerate the transition to a world powered by renewable energy.
The 5 000 tonnes per annum green ammonia demonstration plant, which will be built in Western Jutland, by Skovgaard Invest, Vestas, and Haldor Topsoe, will be state-of-the-art and the world’s first so-called dynamic green ammonia plant.
The dynamic approach entails that the clean power from wind turbines and solar panels will be connected directly to the electrolysis unit making it more cost-effective than if involving a battery or hydrogen storage. The power will be supplied from six existing V80-2.0 MW Vestas wind turbines and 50 MW from new solar panels.
We are excited to move forward with the world’s first fully dynamic industrial-scale renewable ammonia plant as it highlights the viability of electrification beyond the power sector. The project demonstrates an integrated power-to-X use case with significant demand potential. Vestas is uniquely positioned to integrate renewable energy with other technologies and we are proud to lay the foundation for scalable power-to-X production together with our partners on this project, said Ole Kiil Nielsen, VP and Head of Power-To-X Solutions at Vestas.
Haldor Topsoe will design the plant’s dynamic ammonia technology to secure optimal production and adapt to the inherent fluctuations in power output from wind turbines and solar panels. The ammonia plant will interface to a green hydrogen solution developed by Vestas, integrating electrolysis with wind and solar in one smart control system.
We are proud, that the Danish technology program acknowledges our project as being unique when it comes to developing and demonstrating new energy technology that holds a global potential. The green ammonia plant is a prime example of how renewable electricity can be converted to sustainable fuels via electrolysis. For us, this is one of more partnerships showing that we already today have the technologies to introduce new clean solutions showcased by this green ammonia project, said Kim Grøn Knudsen, Chief Strategy and Innovation Officer at Haldor Topsoe.
In addition, renewable energy generation will be connected directly to the national grid so surplus power can be sold to the grid. The partnership will jointly invest in the project.
At Skovgaard Invest, we expect that the REDDAP project will build on our capability within practical execution, power-to-X project planning, and provide us with an opportunity to gain expertise in daily operations of a fully dynamic ammonia plant. We wish to play a role in the future power-to-X industry, and the REDDAP project will mark the starting point of a learning curve, that we and many others in the industry are facing. We believe that crucial know-how can be drawn from the demonstration project, which will then feed into future industrial-scale projects. More long term, we also hope to be able to demonstrate how the vast renewable resources in West Jutland, coupled with flexible power consumption in power-to-X, can generate new jobs and opportunities in a part of the country where that can seem difficult at times, Bjarke Mollerup Bitsch, Business Development at Skovgaard Invest.
