Power to Ammonia: Energy and electricity prices scenarios 2020-2023-2030

The more we proceed with the energy transition towards renewable and sustainable energy, the greater the need to innovate on a system level: we have to find and implement options that make the energy system more flexible. This must be done in a way that fits variable renewable energy sources – ample supply at some time, and shortages at other times. Technologies like Power to Ammonia, that convert electrical energy to a chemical form, store the energy for a length of time, allowing for conversion back to electricity if necessary, are just the options that are important to investigate. In the power-to-ammonia (P2A) study it was investigated under what conditions 1) NH3 can be produced using  renewable electricity, 2) NH3 can be used to store electricity and 3) NH3 can be used as a CO2-neutral fuel for a power plant.

The contribution from CE Delft was two-fold:

1. Knowledge transfer within the consortium on the electricity market. For this we organised two workshops with the goal of raising the knowledge on the electricity market, the current institutional arrangements in the electricity markets, and what will change given projected developments.
2. Develop energy and price scenarios for the time scale to be used in the P2A value chains (2020-2023-2030).

The scenarios were developed based on input from the consortium partners and tailored to the sensitivities surrounding the Power to Ammonia value chain. Electricity prices were simulated with the PowerFlex market simulation model.

The Power to Ammonia project is a partnership between ISPT (project leader), Stedin Infrastructure Services, Nuon, ECN, Delft University of Technology, University of Twente, Proton Ventures, OCI Nitrogen, CE Delft and AkzoNobel, and made possible by a grant from the Dutch Energy Top Sector, System Integration programme.