Renewable production of ammonia and nitric acid

Decarbonization of the power sector offers ammonia industry an opportunity to reduce its CO2 emissions through sector coupling. Extending from our previous work, we propose a power-based process for ammonia and nitric acid production. The coupling of nitric acid production facilitates highly efficient heat integration between steam electrolysis and the rest of the process. We investigate the economic performance of the production complex through a model-based dynamic optimization approach, considering scenarios with or without incorporation of intermittent wind power as well as deployment of battery storage. In all cases, the wind power integration proves to be economic with a peak-to-base load ratio of up to 2.3. The new process reduces primary energy consumption by more than 13% compared to conventional technologies. However, it is only economically competitive with help of either a low-cost battery storage or a higher carbon price on fossil fuels. The results also confirm the importance of considering process dynamics during process design.