Techno-Economic Challenges of Green Ammonia as an Energy Vector

Agustin Valera-Medina is a Reader/Associate Professor at Cardiff School of Engineering. He has a bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from UNAM, Mexico, and an MSc and a PhD in the field of Energy from Cardiff University, UK. He has participated as PI/Co-I on 23 industrial projects with multinationals including PEMEX, Rolls-Royce, Siemens, Ricardo, Airbus, and EON, attracting approximately £8.5M. He has published 145 papers (h-index 19), 26 of these specifically concerning ammonia power. He has supervised 22 PhD students, 5 on ammonia-related topics. Dr. Valera-Medina led Cardiff’s contribution to the Innovate-UK “Decoupled Green Energy” Project (2015–2018) led by Siemens and in partnership with STFC and the University of Oxford, which aimed to demonstrate the use of green ammonia produced from wind energy. He is currently PI of the project SAFE-AGT (EP/T009314/1, £1.9M) to demonstrate the use of ammonia as an efficient gas turbine fuel. He leads the combustion work package of the H2020 project FLEXnCONFU (884157), a €12.7M project conceived to demonstrate ammonia power in large turbine engines. He is also PI and co-I of projects related to ammonia for transportation, propulsion, and heat/cooling. He has been part of various scientific boards, chairing sessions in international conferences and moderating large industrial panels on the topic of “Ammonia for Direct Use.” He supported the preparation of the Royal Society Policy Briefings “Green Ammonia” on the use of ammonia as energy vector. Rene Banares-Alcantara is a Reader at the Department of Engineering Science, University of Oxford, and a Fellow and Senior Engineering Tutor in New College. He has a Bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México and obtained his MSc and PhD degrees in the field of Chemical Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. He has worked at the Instituto de Investigaciones Eléctricas, Facultad de Química (UNAM), and the University of Edinburgh. He has been a principal grant holder and/or participated as coinvestigator in projects funded by the European Union, EPSRC, DURSI, MCYT, SERC, Siemens, and the ECOSSE industrial consortium (Air Products, Aspen Tech, BP, BNFL, DuPont, ICI, QuantiSci, KBC, Mitsubishi, Chemicals, Norsk Hydro, Simon Carves, SimSci, and Zeneca). His research interests are in the area of Process Systems Engineering and the development of decision support tools. Since 2014, he has been involved in projects related to long-term (chemical) storage of renewable energy, the production of “green” ammonia, and its role in decarbonizing the electricity sector.

1. Introduction2. Energy storage technologies3. Pathways for green ammonia as hydrogen vector4. Green ammonia: production, storage, and transportation5. Distribution of ammonia6. Use of ammonia as energy vector7. Applications8. Techno-economic aspects of production, storage, and transportation of Green Ammonia9. Techno-economic aspects of the use of ammonia as energy vector10. Safety aspects11. Regulatory framework12. Social acceptance of ammonia energy technologies13. Future expectations