Iberdrola’s subsidiary ScottishPowerEnlace will build a pilot plant in the United Kingdom to test a novel electrolyzer technology that might lower the cost of green hydrogen generation.
GreeNH3 will be developed in collaboration with Proton Ventures and Supercritical, the companies that invented this new type of electrolyzer. Its creation, which uses heat and pressure to feed gases at more than 200 bar pressure without the need of compressors, saves up to 20% of the energy required to create the same quantity of hydrogen, lowering the cost.
These sorts of solutions, according to Barry Carruthers, Director of Hydrogen at ScottishPower, are “fueling the clean fuels revolution, delivering green hydrogen and ammonia to markets that may not have known there is a greener option.” We intend to demonstrate that ammonia production may be done in a more sustainable and lucrative manner.”
Through the Net Zero Innovation Portfolio Low Carbon Hydrogen Supply 2 initiative, the British government has backed the project. This initiative, according to UK Energy Minister Greg Hands, “will assist encourage the development of hydrogen as the clean, inexpensive, self-produced superfuel of the future.”
generation of ammonia
The Iberdrola facility will also function as a pilot to see if the technology can be used to produce ammonia on a wide scale. This novel high-pressure electrolyzer will be utilized in an ammonia module supplied by Proton Ventures, where green hydrogen will react with nitrogen from the air at extremely high pressures to make ammonia.
In the United Kingdom, the energy firm has two green hydrogen projects: one in Comarty for decarbonizing distilleries’ heating processes, and another on the outskirts of Glasgow that will be operational in 2023 and capable of producing up to 3,000 tons of hydrogen per year.
