Germany’s Thyssenkrupp Uhde Chlorine Engineers has signed a contract to supply more than 2GW of electrolyser capacity to the world’s largest green ammonia project at the Neom smart city in northwest Saudi Arabia.

The $5bn project—which will produce 1.2mn t/yr of green ammonia—is due for commissioning in 2026.

Under the contract, awarded by US industrial gases and chemicals company Air Products, Thyssenkrupp will engineer, procure and fabricate the plant, which will be  based on the its 20MW alkaline water electrolysis module. Engineering and procurement activities have been started.

“With our large-scale standard module size and gigawatt cell-manufacturing capacity per year, together with our joint venture partner [Italian sustainable technology company] De Nora we are able to deliver large capacity projects today,” says Denis Krude, CEO of Thyssenkrupp Uhde Chlorine Engineers.

The project will be powered by renewables and produce hydrogen for synthesis into carbon-free ammonia for export exclusively by Air Products. Tenders to build the renewable electricity capacity will precede the financing agreements and are expected to be awarded soon.

The developers chose to ship the green hydrogen as ammonia because it is a versatile end-product and because of the lack of available hydrogen transportation infrastructure.

Air Products says it will likely reconvert much of the ammonia into green hydrogen for use in trucks and buses. The other project partners are Neom Green Hydrogen Company and Saudi power project developer Acwa Power.

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Author: Stuart Penson