JERA, IHI start co-firing ammonia at coal power plant

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's biggest power generator JERA and IHI Corp have begun to use small volumes of ammonia along with coal at JERA's Hekinan power station in central Japan as part of an effort to reduce the facility's emissions of carbon dioxide.

The co-firing project is a part of a plan to use more ammonia alongside coal at large-scale commercial coal-fired plants as part of a shift to cleaner fuels.

The demonstration project runs for about four years through March 2025 with a target of achieving a co-firing rate of 20% at a 1 gigawatt(GW) coal power plant at Hekinan.

Ammonia is used for fertiliser and industrial materials, but is also seen as a future energy source, along with hydrogen. It does not emit carbon dioxide when burned although its production produces emissions if it is made with fossil fuel.

The use of 200 tonnes of ammonia at the 1 GW No. 5 unit is for the purpose of developing a co-firing burner to be used for large-volume utilisation of ammonia at the 1 GW No. 4 unit in 2024, they said in a joint statement.

They will examine the effects of different burner materials and combustion times to identify the required conditions for co-firing burners from the demonstration at the No. 5 unit.

JERA is a joint venture between Tokyo Electric Power and Chubu Electric Power.

IHI, which makes burners among other industrial machinery, said separately it has begun developing a large ammonia receiving terminal to help build an ammonia supply chain.

It aims to boost the capacity of the receiving terminal to the size of a liquefied natural gas (LNG) receiving terminal and plans to complete development in around 2025, it said.

(Reporting by Yuka Obayashi, editing by Louise Heavens)

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