Yara and Linde Engineering to build hydrogen plant in Norway
Green ammonia is the key to reducing emissions from world food production and long-distance shipping.
Yara and Linde Engineering have agreed to build a 24MW green hydrogen demonstration plant at Yara’s ammonia production facility at Heroya Industripark in Porsgrunn, Norway.
The project, supported by a NOK 283 million grant from Enova, will demonstrate that ammonia produced using renewable energy can reduce the impact of carbon dioxide in fertiliser production.
The project will employ proton exchange membrane (PEM) water electrolysis technology for the production of green hydrogen to partially replace the hydrocarbon-based hydrogen production in Yara’s plant.
The plant will have an annual capacity of around 10k kg/day of hydrogen. It will replace ethane as raw material in production, reducing 41k tonnes/year of CO2 emissions.
The electricity will be delivered from renewable energy sources and will provide enough hydrogen to produce 20,500/year tonnes of ammonia which can be converted to between 60k and 80k tonnes of green fertiliser. The project will be Yara’s first step towards decarbonising the ammonia industry.
This project will be the second 24 MW PEM electrolysis plant designed and constructed by Linde Engineering. The first is now being built at the Leuna Chemical Complex in Germany.
Magnus Ankarstrand, President at Yara, said, “The project aims to supply the first green ammonia products to the market as early as mid-2023, both as fossil-free fertilisers, as well as emissions-free shipping fuel.”
John van der Velden, Senior VP at Linde Engineering, added, “Given the growing demand from the fertiliser industry for green hydrogen, this plant is a step towards further upscaling and increasing the size of these projects worldwide.”
