CERC Special Seminar – Power-to-ammonia for a clean commodity and energy carrier

Abstract

Ammonia is a versatile chemical that is distributed and traded widely as a commodity for the fertilizer and refrigeration industries, and it also has the potential to be a low-emission fuel, hydrogen carrier and energy storage medium. Converting clean electricity to ammonia (i.e., power-to-ammonia, or P2A) is a critical process to decarbonize the use of ammonia in agriculture, transportation, and energy sectors. In this talk, I will highlight the research activities in my group on P2A processes. First, we conducted a techno-economic analysis to study electrified ammonia production. The levelized cost of ammonia was found to be highly dependent on the electrolyzer efficiency and capacity factor. Then, we designed a P2A plant using offshore wind power from Sable Island, Nova Scotia. Even though the offshore wind farms in Atlantic Canada are expected to have high-capacity factors, we still found it necessary to connect the plant with the electrical grid to maintain high ammonia outputs. Yet grid-connection could raise the carbon intensities of the P2A process to a higher level than the conventional fossil-fuel based ammonia production. Furthermore, we studied the potential economic benefits and risks of using excess electricity for P2A in a combined ammonia use scenario, including local fertilizer sales, export, and energy storage. Results show that with higher prices and larger export demands for low-carbon ammonia, as well as technology development, the combined use scenario will be profitable compared with selling excess electricity at low prices.

Biography

Dr. XiaoYu Wu is an assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering at the University of Waterloo. He received his B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees from Zhejiang University, and Ph.D. from MIT. His research group, Greener Production @ Waterloo, combines expertise in thermal science, material engineering and techno-economics to develop sustainable technologies for energy conversion and chemical production, such as hydrogen and ammonia conversion, energy storage, and membrane separation. He has published more than 20 papers in peer-reviewed journals such as Progress in Energy and Combustion Science and Applied Catalysis B: Environmental. Dr. Wu also serves on the Editorial Board for the International Journal of Green Energy and is an Associate Editor for Frontiers in Energy Research.