Yara International ASA, Oslo, has inked a contract with Germany’s Linde Engineering for the construction and delivery of a 24 MW green hydrogen demonstration plant at Yara’s ammonia production plant at Herøya Industripark in Porsgrunn, Norway.
The plant will have an annual capacity of around 10,000 kg/day of hydrogen, and will provide enough hydrogen to produce 20,500 mt/y of ammonia, which can be converted to between 60,000 and 80,000 mt/y of green fertilizer – roughly five times the annual production of food grade wheat in Norway, Yara said in a Jan. 28 statement.
The project will be realized by water electrolysis, which will produce green hydrogen to partially replace the hydrocarbon-based hydrogen production in the Herøya plant using proton exchange membrane (PEM) technology.
The facility will replace ethane as raw material in production, thereby reducing 41,000 mt of carbon dioxide emissions annually. The electricity will be delivered from renewable sources.
Yara Clean Ammonia President Magnus Ankarstrand said the project aims to supply the first green ammonia products to market as early as mid-2023, “both as fossil-free fertilizers, as well as emissions-free shipping fuel.”
Yara said the project will demonstrate that ammonia produced using renewal energy can reduce the impact of carbon dioxide in fertilizer production, and is a first step towards decarbonization of the ammonia industry.
The project is being supported by a NOK283 million (approximately $31.6 million at current exchange rates) grant from Enova, a state enterprise owned by Norway’s Ministry of Climate and Environment, announced in December. The Herøya PEM electrolysis plant will be the second 24 MW such unit designed and constructed by Linde Engineering.