Ammonia Production from a Non-Grid Connected Floating Offshore Wind-Farm: A System-Level Techno-Economic Review
Creators: name: Parmar, Vismay V.
Publisher: name: University of Massachusetts Amherst
Year: 2019

description: According to U.S. Department of Energy, offshore wind energy has the potential to generate 7,200 TWh of energy annually, which is nearly twice the current annual energy consumption in the United States. With technical advances in the offshore wind industry, particularly in the floating platforms, windfarms are pushing further into the ocean. This creates new engineering challenges for transmission of energy from offshore site to onshore. One possible solution is to convert the energy produced into chemical energy of ammonia, which was investigated by Dr. Eric Morgan. In his doctoral dissertation, he assessed the technical requirements and economics of a 300 tons/day capacity ammonia plant powered by offshore wind. However, in his dissertation, one of the assumptions was connection to the grid which provided auxiliary power to keep the ammonia plant operational and produce at rated capacity. It also allowed selling of excess power to the grid in the scenario of excess power production by wind farm during high winds.
This thesis explores the technical and economical feasibility of a similar system, except that the ammonia plant will be on a plantship and there is no connection to the grid. This creates a challenge as the ammonia synthesis plant must operate between 65-100% loads. Thus, the concept of multiple mini-ammonia plants is used to address the scenario of wind energy production at less than rated power. This will allow operation of one or more mini-ammonia plant (corresponding to the available energy from offshore wind). In the event of wind speed lower than the cutoff wind speed for the turbine, the ammonia plant will use the produced ammonia as fuel, with the help of a gas turbine running on either Brayton cycle or combined cycle, to keep the plant idling. It will maintain the reaction conditions of the synthesis chamber and will not produce any ammonia. This is an important step as it takes days to reach the reaction conditions to start ammonia production again after shutting down due to unavailability of energy at low winds. Thus, at any windspeed, a mini-ammonia plant would either idle or operate between 65-100% load. This model will be used to simulate the total energy consumption, total energy captured by the wind farm, and the total ammonia produced. This will further help in assessing the final cost of producing, transporting, and consuming ammonia as fuel and thereby provide a better understanding of the feasibility of implementing this technology.
According to U.S. Department of Energy, offshore wind energy has the potential to generate 7,200 TWh of energy annually, which is nearly twice the current annual energy consumption in the United States. With technical advances in the offshore wind industry, particularly in the floating platforms, windfarms are pushing further into the ocean. This creates new engineering challenges for transmission of energy from offshore site to onshore. One possible solution is to convert the energy produced into chemical energy of ammonia, which was investigated by Dr. Eric Morgan. In his doctoral dissertation, he assessed the technical requirements and economics of a 300 tons/day capacity ammonia plant powered by offshore wind. However, in his dissertation, one of the assumptions was connection to the grid which provided auxiliary power to keep the ammonia plant operational and produce at rated capacity. It also allowed selling of excess power to the grid in the scenario of excess power production by wind farm during high winds.\\ \par This thesis explores the technical and economical feasibility of a similar system, except that the ammonia plant will be on a plantship and there is no connection to the grid. This creates a challenge as the ammonia synthesis plant must operate between 65-100\% loads. Thus, the concept of multiple mini-ammonia plants is used to address the scenario of wind energy production at less than rated power. This will allow operation of one or more mini-ammonia plant (corresponding to the available energy from offshore wind). In the event of wind speed lower than the cutoff wind speed for the turbine, the ammonia plant will use the produced ammonia as fuel, with the help of a gas turbine running on either Brayton cycle or combined cycle, to keep the plant idling. It will maintain the reaction conditions of the synthesis chamber and will not produce any ammonia. This is an important step as it takes days to reach the reaction conditions to start ammonia production again after shutting down due to unavailability of energy at low winds. Thus, at any windspeed, a mini-ammonia plant would either idle or operate between 65-100\% load. This model will be used to simulate the total energy consumption, total energy captured by the wind farm, and the total ammonia produced. This will further help in assessing the final cost of producing, transporting, and consuming ammonia as fuel and thereby provide a better understanding of the feasibility of implementing this technology.