Three South Korean companies have signed an agreement to build a green hydrogen and ammonia production plant in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Korea Electric Power Corp., Samsung C&T Corp., and Korea Western Power, alongside the UAE’s Petrolyn Chemie, will build a plant that will produce up to 200,000 tonnes of green ammonia per year.
Khalifa Industrial Zone Abu Dhabi (KIZAD), a subsidiary of Abu Dhabi Ports, initially announced the project in May 2021. Helios Industry (Helios), a privately owned special project company, will invest US$1 billion in the construction of the facility over several years. The plant will be built in two phases in the KIZAD Industrial Area near the capital Abu Dhabi.
The Helios facility will be powered by a dedicated solar power plant within KIZAD, which will have a capacity of 800 MW. The plant will use solar power to electrolyze water and split molecules into hydrogen and oxygen. At peak capacity, 40,000 tonnes of the green hydrogen released in this process will be used to produce 200,000 tonnes of green ammonia.
According to Helios, the facility will be the first production plant within Abu Dhabi to produce green ammonia from hydrogen using renewable energy. Upon completion, the plant is expected to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by an excess of 600,000 tonnes annually, equivalent to the amount of pollution generated by roughly 140,000 vehicles.
