How the 170 years old company keeps growing in the ever-changing society.

Ammonia and Renewable Energy: Bridging the Gap in Energy Supply and Demand

Hydrogen, and its derivative including ammonia will play an important role in expanding the use of renewable energy. To reduce the temporal and geographical mismatch between supply and demand is one of the major challenges. Storage and transportation of renewable energy is imperative for coastal areas and island nations such as Japan.

IHI, with 170 years of history, has been responding to the ever-changing demands of society. To contribute its effort to the smooth transition to carbon neutrality, IHI has been putting technologies and resources in developing the entire ammonia value chain from upstream to downstream, including production, transportation, storage and usage.

IHI’s Pioneering Efforts in Developing the Ammonia Value Chain

For upstream, IHI has utilized its technology to minimize the production cost of green ammonia. As for downstream, IHI can provide ammonia gas turbines for power generation and co-generation use, reciprocating engines for power and maritime use.

IHI has developed the 100% ammonia combustion system for small gas turbines; it will be commercialized in 2027 after the completion of durability test.

Also, a joint development on 100% large gas turbines with General Electric is underway and a roadmap to complete development by 2030.

IHI will offer quicker and cost-effective fuel conversion for existing natural gas turbine users. Without replacing their existing gas turbines, just simply swap out their natural gas combustor, and other minor parts of their gas turbines, to an ammonia combustor.

For users of LNG and/ or LPG tanks, IHI will provide solutions to help convert their existing tanks to store Ammonia soon.

In addition, IHI will start the demonstration of reciprocating engines for maritime use from next year. It will provide flexible solutions to leverage customer’s existing assets to achieve decarbonization.

Ensuring Safety and Sustainability in Ammonia Use for Renewable Energy

The use of Ammonia is not new to the world, Ammonia has already been distributed safely worldwide for more than 100 years, mainly fertilizer and chemical industries.

Having had experiences in using ammonia as a fuel safely in an environmental-friendly manner for a decade, IHI has taken appropriate measures and a set of regulations and standards to ensure the safe use of ammonia in large volumes, in new handling environments will be necessitated by the uptake of ammonia as a fuel. 

“Contribute to the development of society through technology” was deeply embedded in the mind of all IHI staff. This slogan drives the company move faster to achieve the decarbonization for a sustainable earth and society by the creation of a Green Ammonia Value chain.

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