In February Danish fund management company Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners announced its plans to build Europe’s largest Power-to-X facility, which will convert power from offshore wind turbines to green ammonia.
The new facility, which will be located in Esbjerg, Denmark, will be developed by CIP in collaboration with market leaders in the agriculture and shipping industry. It manufacture green ammonia, which will be used by the agriculture sector as CO2-free fertiliser and by the shipping industry as CO2-free fuel. The excess heat will be used to provide district heating for around one third of the local households in the city of Esbjerg. In total, the facility is expected to reduce CO2 emissions by around 1.5 million tonnes of CO2 annually.
“This is a fantastic project that will contribute significantly to Denmark’s reaching its CO2 reduction target of 70% by 2030. We need projects like these if we are to hit the target,” says Mogens Skov, Global Spearhead director in Ramboll’s energy division, which carried out the initial safety and risk analyses of the project. The conclusion is that the project can be realised if the risk factors are addressed in the planning and design of the facility and required safety measures are taken to ensure that the risk profile of the plant is environmentally and socially acceptable. “The facility will be regulated by the SEVESO directive, which has particularly strict requirements for safety and risk assessment,” said Jan Gramkov, a risk expert at Ramboll’
When the site for the facility has been selected, a thorough environmental impact assessment as well as a number of risk assessments and safety documents will be made and submitted for approval by the authorities.
If conditions relating to the physical planning, technology application, formal permits, operating costs and market uptake are settled in the coming year, the final investment decision is expected to be made at the end of 2022.
