Leveraging Green Ammonia for Resilient and Cost-Competitive Islanded Electricity Generation from Hybrid Solar Photovoltaic-Wind Farms: A Case Study in South Africa

Victor N Sagel; Kevin H R Rouwenhorst; Jimmy A Faria

doi:10.1021/acs.energyfuels.3c01950

Leveraging Green Ammonia for Resilient and Cost-Competitive Islanded Electricity Generation from Hybrid Solar Photovoltaic-Wind Farms: A Case Study in South Africa

Energy Fuels. 2023 Aug 31;37(18):14383-14392. doi: 10.1021/acs.energyfuels.3c01950. eCollection 2023 Sep 21.

Authors

Victor N Sagel^{1

2}, Kevin H R Rouwenhorst^{1

3

4}, Jimmy A Faria¹

Affiliations

¹ Catalytic Processes & Materials, MESA+ Institute for Nanotechnology, University of Twente, Post Office Box 217, 7500 AE Enschede, Netherlands.
² Sustainable Process Technology Group, Faculty of Science and Technology, University of Twente, Post Office Box 217, 7500 AE Enschede, Netherlands.
³ Ammonia Energy Association, 77 Sands Street, Sixth Floor, Brooklyn, New York 11201, United States.
⁴ Proton Ventures, Karel Doormanweg 5, 3115 JD Schiedam, Netherlands.

Abstract

Hybrid solar photovoltaic (PV) and wind generation in combination with green ammonia as a seasonal energy storage vector offers an excellent opportunity to decrease the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE). In this work, an analysis is performed to find the most cost-effective configuration of power-to-ammonia-to-power (P2A2P). In P2A2P, wind and solar resources are combined with energy storage to design a resilient electricity grid. For daily generation, batteries are utilized for energy storage, whereas ammonia is employed to cope with seasonal fluctuations. The costs of energy storage capacity have a significant influence on the LCOE. Therefore, this work studies the effect of solar/wind hybrid generation systems and energy storage capacity on the LCOE. A base case of the region of De Aar in South Africa was selected because this inland location has excellent wind and solar resources. The optimized battolyzer and Haber-Bosch design capacity led to an overall load factor of 20-30%. At a 30% load factor, a hybrid system with 37% wind-based and 63% solar-based energy generation capacity was the most cost-effective configuration, resulting in a LCOE of 0.15 USD/kWh at a 5% annual discount rate. In an optimistic scenario for PV costs, the LCOE achieved is essentially unaltered (0.14 USD/kWh), while the contribution of wind and PV changes to 25 and 75%, respectively. This analysis indicates that appropriate designing of hybrid energy solutions will play a key role in determining the final energy storage capacities needed to reduce the LCOE. While these costs for LCOE are above those reported for coal-powered electricity in South Africa (e.g., 0.072 USD/kWh for businesses and 0.151 USD/kWh for households), a carbon tax of 50 USD/ton of CO₂ can increase these costs to 0.102 and 0.191 USD/kWh, rendering a more promising outlook for the P2A2P concept.