Yara and Nel have signed an agreement to develop clean hydrogen which would allow the former to realise low carbon footprint fertilizer production. The project is based on Nel’s development of new water electrolyser technology that will be tested at Yara’s existing plant in Porsgrunn, Norway. The aim is to produce hydrogen from renewable sources to be fed into Yara’s existing ammonia plant, which will either be used in fertilizer production or used as green ammonia.
The project is supported by Norway’s Research Council, Innovation Norway and Enova through the PILOT-E programme, a funding scheme that aims to speed up the development and implementation of green energy technology. “We’re excited to formally launch the partnership with Nel and work towards developing green ammonia and low carbon fertilizer. Yara’s mission is to responsibly feed the world and protect the planet. We have already removed about half of our direct GHG emissions in the past few decades, and we’re working towards carbon neutrality by 2050. Producing fertilizer with carbon free hydrogen will be a very important step towards that goal”, said Tove Andersen, EVP Production in Yara.
The capacity of the electrolyser will be 5 MW, corresponding to 1% of the hydrogen production in Porsgrunn. It is expected to be installed in 2022. “We are very pleased with the partnership with Nel. Our ammonia plant will make the first small step towards carbon free fertilizer production. When further developed, Yara Porsgrunn will be in a unique position also due to the low carbon footprint from our nitric acid plants”, said Jon Sletten, Plant manager in Porsgrunn.
