Scatec joins scaled up Omani green ammonia project

A previous announcement by Acme indicated the port site would be able to produce around 876,000 tons of the green fuel per year but the Indian developer today said that figure would be 1.2 million tons. The 100,000-ton-per-year first phase of the facility may be operational this year.

March 7, 2022 Max Hall

An Acme green hydrogen plant in Bikaner, Rajasthan

Image: Acme Group

Norwegian renewables developer Scatec ASA today said it has joined the large scale green ammonia plant being planned in Oman by Indian peer Acme Group.

A press release issued this morning by Scatec, to announce plans for a 50/50 Omani green ammonia project company joint venture with Acme, indicated plans for the port facility have been scaled up by almost a third.

pv magazine reported Acme’s plans for the Omani plant in August, when the Indian developer said the facility would produce 2,400 tons of green ammonia daily for annual output of around 876,000 tons.

However, Acme founder and chairman Manoj Upadhyay, quoted in today’s Scatec announcement, said: “This facility will have 1.2 million tons per annum capacity of green ammonia production and can potentially be further expanded in the future at the same location.”

With Acme in August having put an investment figure of $3.5 billion on the project – planned for the special economic zone at the port of Duqm – it was not clear how much the raised ambition would raise that sum as the Scatec press release did not include a cost estimate.

Scatec was also vague about the timescale for a project Acme in August said would see its first phase operational this year, with the Norwegian company stating: “The overall schedule for the project is under development, but the partners share the ambition for this facility to be one of the first commercial large-scale green ammonia facilities in operation globally.”

Phase one of the Omani plant, Scatec said, will produce 100,000 tons of green ammonia per year with the help of 300MW of electrolyzer capacity and 500MW of solar generation capacity.

Acme in August said the site would be powered by 3GWp of solar, upon completion, plus 500MWp of wind turbines, and those figures could rise in line with the raised ammonia output capacity today announced for the project.

Acme’s Upadhyay in August said construction at Duqm would begin “soon after” his company commissioned a green hydrogen and green ammonia site at Bikaner, in the Indian state of Rajasthan, to be powered by 5MWp of solar capacity – scalable to 10MW – and to produce five tons per day of green ammonia for annual output of 1,750-1,800 tons.

Construction

With Scatec today stating Acme had “set up” what the Norwegian company described as “the world’s first single-location integrated solar-power-to-green-ammonia facility at Bikaner, Rajasthan,” that would suggest ground could be broken in Oman before too long.

Acme’s announcement in August coincided with the developer having signed a land agreement for the Duqm project with Oman’s Public Authority for Special Economic Zones and Free Zones. Scatec today said its JV partner has been developing the green ammonia project for 18 months.

The announcement follows the news, revealed last month, that another Acme-Scatec joint venture – a 900MW solar field, also in Rajasthan – has been put on hold because of a combination of the 40% import duty to be applied on non-Indian solar modules from next month by the Indian government, and a lack of Indian products to fill the resulting shortfall.

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