Stakeholders join together to discuss scaling-up green ammonia for shipping

Researchers from the Agile Initiative Sprint analysing the use of green ammonia as a fuel for maritime shipping held an interactive workshop on Monday 27th March 2023.

It was attended by a select group of 22 people in person and 16 online, drawn from across academia, government, industry, and major investment and regulatory organisations to discuss how to scale up green ammonia as a shipping fuel.

Sprint researchers, René Bañares-Alcántara and Nick Salmon presented key findings from the first spatially-detailed global optimisation model for green ammonia production and delivery, which included shipping fuel demand forecasts and wind and solar energy cost forecasts. Attendees were impressed with the model and discussed potential improvements, including modelling the increase in costs for more production at Northern latitudes and expected lower electrolyser costs from new technology.

Anupama Sen, also from the Sprint team, presented three possible areas where UK policymakers might focus, and attendees expressed interest in researching where the UK could gain a competitive advantage in developing a future green ammonia supply chain. In an interactive session, attendees suggested modelling multiple end-use sectors to better understand potential future synergies for green ammonia in shipping.

The workshop provided valuable insights for the research group as they approach the halfway point of their 12-month Sprint and aim to deliver the most impactful outputs.