Abstract
The design of Power-to-Ammonia systems (P2A) is a challenging task. While the technology for all its components, including renewable energy harnessing, electrolysis, Haber-Bosch synthesis, and auxiliary buffers, is mature, assembling such a system to meet the challenges of varying power profiles is not trivial. To ensure resilient, cost-effective designs, careful selection of unit capacities and coordination of all system operations are required. Specifically, this requires modeling system behaviour and enforcing operational constraints to capture system flexibility over a representative time frame. The first steps towards a novel P2A design framework are presented, with a focus on enhanced process operations and exploring new options for process flexibility. A general methodology is proposed, where the full system can be customized, namely by enabling or disabling: (i) multiple renewable energy harnessing sources, (ii) grid operations, and (iii) buffers, including battery and/or an H2 tank. The model is defined as a linear function of a set of design and operation variables, expressed through a set of matrices and vectors, which are then used to formulate and solve a Linear Programming problem. The design methodology is presented and illustrated via 3 distinct P2A configurations, with key results and analyses of system flexibility and performance. A discussion of future steps towards developing this design framework is also presented.