AM Green Ammonia 1mn t/y green hydrogen plant, Andhra Pradesh

First, AM Green Ammonia has reached final investment decision (FID) on a 1mn t/y green hydrogen production plant in Kakinada, Andhra Pradesh, India.  

The project will be located at an existing urea plant, which the company plans to convert to ammonia production for late 2026. The developers have partnered with John Cockerill for 1.3 GW of pressurised alkaline electrolysers.

Most of the production is expected to be sent to Europe. Offtake term sheets have been received from Uniper, Yara, Keppel and other customers. The Kakinada facility has been pre-certified by CertifHy as complying with the European Union’s renewable fuels of non-biological origin (RFNBO) requirements for green ammonia, including additionality and hourly matching of renewables, according to AM Green Ammonia.  

In terms of power supply, the developers have negotiated a 25-year fixed-price power purchase agreement with Indian utility NTPC for half of 1,300 MW of round-the-clock power from 4,500 MW of solar and wind assets, and 950 MW of pumped storage capacity. This power pool will cover the intermittent nature of the renewables supplying the plant, providing for up to 90% utilisation of the electrolysers.  

The remaining power is set to come from Petronas subsidiary Gentari, which is also an investor in the project, alongside India’s General Insurance Company.

ExxonMobil Baytown, Texas, refinery CCUS

Meanwhile, in the US, Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) has taken a 35% stake in ExxonMobil’s proposed low-carbon hydrogen and ammonia production facility at its Baytown, Texas, refinery.  

The blue hydrogen facility is said to be expected to produce up to 1bn cf/d of low-carbon hydrogen, and more than 1mn t/y of low-carbon ammonia from natural gas, but coupled with technologies to capture and store 98% of the carbon in a 10mn t/y-capacity facility.

Announced last year, the project would use the hydrogen to produce olefins, reducing site emissions by 30%.

At that time, the project was described as linking into the Houston, Texas, carbon capture hub to store up to 100mn t/y from local power plants, refineries and petrochemical facilities by 2040.  

Technip won the contract for a front-end engineering design (FEED) study of the Baytown project. A FID is expected in 2025 with anticipated startup in 2029.  

US DOE funds 20 hydrogen R&D projects

Finally, the US government has announced $62mn of funding for 20 hydrogen R&D projects. They cover developing components for hydrogen fuelling of medium- and heavy-duty vehicles (four projects, $8.5mn), a standard hydrogen fuelling station design (four projects, $40mn), hydrogen fuel-cell powered port equipment (one project, $2.5mn), enabling permitting and safety for hydrogen deployment (seven projects, $7mn) and enabling equitable deployment of hydrogen technologies (four projects, $4mn).

The projects will work to develop hydrogen projects alongside Regional Clean Hydrogen Hubs, which were funded with $7bn from other government sources. The announcement comes 14 months after the publication of the National Clean Hydrogen Strategy and Roadmap.

The Department of Energy (DOE) says: ‘Clean hydrogen is a flexible energy carrier and an essential input to several important chemical processes, such as fertiliser production and steelmaking. It can be produced from a diverse mix of domestic clean energy resources, including renewables, nuclear, and fossil resources with safe and responsible carbon capture. Its unique characteristics will help substantially reduce harmful emissions from some of the hardest-to-decarbonise sectors of the economy, such as chemical and industrial processes and heavy-duty transportation, while helping tackle the climate crisis. It could also be used as a form of long-duration energy storage to support the expansion of renewable power.’