Japan’s biggest electricity generator is ramping up the schedule for co-firing one of its coal power plants with ammonia as the country’s utilities bet on the technology to cut carbon emissions.
Jera Co and IHI Corp plan to start a demonstration project to co-fire a unit at its Hekinan Thermal Power Station with 20 percent fuel ammonia by the year ending March 2024, advancing the schedule by a year, Jera said in a news release.
The companies accelerated the demonstration project because they have installed burners, tanks, pipes and other equipment faster than they expected.
Photo: Reuters
The move comes as Japanese utilities eye ammonia and hydrogen co-firing as ways to decarbonize electricity production.
Many of these technologies have yet to be commercialized, a BloombergNEF report said.
Critics say that co-firing at coal plants extends the lifetime of the facilities to continue polluting.
Jera, a joint venture between Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings and Chubu Electric Power Co, aims to be carbon neutral by 2050.
The power producer is targeting having its coal power plants operate on 50 percent ammonia by the first half of the 2030s and shift to 100 percent of the carbon-free fuel by the middle of the century.
The country’s top power producer also announced earlier in February that it would conduct an international competitive bid for ammonia procurement, as enormous volumes are expected to be needed to generate power.
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