Techno-economic analysis of using ammonia as an energy carrier for renewable energy conversion and storage

Abstract

Using ammonia as an energy carrier for renewable energy conversion and storage via electricity-fuel-electricity approach has attracted ever-increasing attention during the last few decades. However, the technical feasibility and economic benefits of electricity-ammonia-electricity route remain to be investigated. Meanwhile, the integration and matching of various energy conversion and storage technologies deserve to be optimized towards high energy utilization efficiency. Therefore, in this study, a comprehensive techno-economic analysis of using ammonia as an energy carrier via the electricity-ammonia-electricity approach has been carried out. A renewable energy conversion and storage roadmap consisting of five different routes is proposed and analyzed. Besides, the effects of the system scale as well as the maturity of the technology on the system cost and efficiency are investigated. The estimated results demonstrate that the current achieved round-trip efficiency of electricity-ammonia-electricity ranges from 18.71 to 33.03 %. Besides, the cost of proton exchange membrane fuel cells-based electricity-ammonia-electricity system is the lowest, at about 0.06 USD/kWh. Furthermore, scaling up the system from 1 MW to 100 MW reduces the system cost by about 10 %. Additionally, from 2023 to 2050, with the development of technology, the cost of electricity-ammonia-electricity will decrease by around 47.7–59.6 %, and the efficiency will increase by approximately 17.3–40.7 %.