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Fertilizer International 522 Sept-Oct 2024

30 September 2024

FERTIBERIA PIONEERS EUROPE’S GREEN AMMONIA MARKET

Puertollano green hydrogen plant, Spain.
PHOTO: IBERDROLA

Fertiberia’s Puertollano green hydrogen plant was officially inaugurated by Spain’s King Felipe VI in May 2023. The 20MW capacity unit will produce up to 3,000 tonnes of renewable hydrogen annually.

Industrial scale-green ammonia manufacture

The new plant incorporates one of the world’s largest water electrolysis systems and is powered using renewable electricity from an integrated 100MW photovoltaic solar array. The plant, previously the largest of its type in Europe, will supply the company’s nearby fertilizer complex, enabling Fertiberia to produce green ammonia at Puertollano, using green hydrogen instead of natural gas.

This major project was successfully developed in partnership with the Spanish electrical utility Iberdrola. It forms the centrepiece of Fertiberia’s net zero strategy and the company’s ambitions to become carbon-neutral by 2035. With Puertollano’s inauguration, Fertiberia became the world’s first major crop nutrient company to begin carbon-free ammonia and fertilizer production on an industrial scale.

Javier Goñi, Fertiberia’s CEO, said the company’s investment in Puertollano marked the first step towards pioneering the green ammonia market in Europe. “The milestone … makes us the first company in the world to manufacture green ammonia and CO2 -free crop nutrition solutions on an industrial scale. The project is unique in the sector due to its sheer size,” he said.

thyssenkrupp Uhde to decarbonise Puertollano

Fertiberia has also commissioned thyssenkrupp Uhde to modify and reduce the carbon footprint of its conventional ammonia plant at Puertollano. A revamp project will partially convert production at the existing Puertollano plant from grey to green ammonia by injecting green hydrogen to partly replace the natural gas currently consumed (Fertilizer International 520, p10).

The green hydrogen required will come from a new 50MW water electrolysis unit running on renewable energy. Its injection to replace natural gas should reduce the ammonia plant’s CO2 emissions by up to 40 percent.

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Running the gamut

This issue of Sulphur magazine contains a preview of CRU’s Sulphur + Sulphuric Acid conference in Woodlands, Texas, which is being held from November 3rd to 5th this year, giving delegates the opportunity to meet and discuss some of the trends which are continuing to change the sulphur and sulphuric acid industries. Some of this is echoed in our editorial coverage this issue; the rise of electric vehicles and the continuing electrification of society is changing demand for metals and impacting upon both sulphur and sulphuric acid markets alike. As CRU’s principal analyst Peter Harrison discusses on pages 36-37, battery demand for nickel is leading to a surge in new nickel leaching capacity in Indonesia which is drawing in greatly increased volumes of sulphur, while rising demand for copper is leading to additional volumes of smelter acid from China, India and Indonesia which are impacting the merchant market for acid, as detailed by CRU’s Viviana Alvorado on pages 38-40. In the United States, new lithium mines will require additional sulphur (see pages 22-23). Rare earths and battery metal recovery will form a major topic on the first day of the Sulphur + Sulphuric Acid conference, with speakers from Lithium Americas, one of the pioneers of the new US lithium industry.