The Green Ammonia Demonstrator - a National Net-Zero Project

This proposal focuses on the development of the Green Ammonia Demonstrator at Harwell as an interdisciplinary research, development and demonstration project for renewable chemical-energy fuel production, storage and utilisation and as an educational and teaching resource for future zero-carbon energy technologies.

The Green Ammonia Demonstrator was designed, built and commissioned at the STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxfordshire in 2018 as the world's first roundtrip demonstration of green ammonia for energy storage (Power-to-Ammonia-to-Power). The project was part of the Siemens-led "Decoupled Green Energy" project funded by InnovateUK/EPSRC (£1.6M) and Siemens (£1M). On 1st October 2019, Siemens transferred Demonstrator hardware in its entirety to UKRI-STFC to facilitate the future use of this system as a research and teaching resource.

The resources requested cover the full technical handover of the Demonstrator from Siemens to UKRI-STFC over 18 months as well as the expansion of its role to include active research into further aspects of renewable ammonia synthesis, storage and utilisation. Coupled to this expanded role will be the integration of four extant CDT groups in relevant areas of energy research. The majority of the resources requested will cover engineering expertise for both day-to-day running of the demonstrator and augmenting its potential research capabilities.