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plants. (IEEFA). generation equipment that will only need
The country, which has previously been WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM ammonia as fuel.
heavily dependent on coal for electricity Ammonia is produced by extracting
generation, now has more than 101,000 hydrogen from natural gas -- a process that
rooftop installations on homes, offices and RENEWABLES generates large amounts of carbon dioxide.
factories, creating a 25-fold increase in its Jera, together with Petronas, will work on
solar generating capacity in just one year. Japan’s Jera to produce producing ammonia through electricity
A key feature of the incentive scheme was generated from renewable energy to eliminate
a generous feed-in tariff for solar users to sell ammonia for power with carbon dioxide emissions.
surplus power to the national electricity grid The companies plan to begin a
at a price guaranteed for 20 years. Viet Nam Malaysia’s Petronas demonstration experiment within the next
favoured rooftop solar because it does not use year in which coal and ammonia will be
scarce land or require new transmission lines. Jera, a joint fuel-procurement venture mixed and used as fuel at a thermal power
Among the sites for a new installation between Japan’s Tokyo Electric Power and plant in Aichi Prefecture, located in central
was the rooftop of the Da Nang offices of Chubu Electric Power, will begin ammonia Japan. The experiment will provide the
Viet Nam’s Central Power Corporation production free of carbon dioxide emissions companies with more knowledge and will
(EVNCPC), the state-owned electricity through a partnership with a Malaysian state- support their journey to creating a power
company. The solar panels generate an average owned enterprise, Nikkei reported. generation facility that will burn only
of over 100 kilowatt hours per day to power Production will follow the signing of a ammonia.
the offices. memorandum of understanding between One major challenge will be profitability.
The scheme is not the country’s first big Jera and Malaysian oil and gas giant Petronas. It is said that ammonia fuel can be
spend on renewables. Back in 2019, it made a The two have agreed to use renewable energy, 50% more expensive than coal. Ammonia
major investment by installing 4.5 gigawatts of like hydropower, to manufacture ammonia produced through recycled energy could
conventional ground-based solar power. With without releasing CO2. Further details on the become even more costly.
the latest burst of new rooftop installations, production site, as well as production capacity, Jera aims to reduce costs by taking charge
the country now generates a quarter of its will be determined at a later date. of every process, from development to
electricity from solar. For Jera, Japan’s largest power generation procurement to power generation.
Solar has also received a boost from company, the move highlights its efforts to Japan leads the world in efforts related
changes to the law on public/private decarbonise its fuel as the electric power to the use of ammonia as a fuel for power
partnerships in Viet Nam which mean that industry faces calls to reduce carbon generation. On Monday the Ministry of
investments in coal-fired stations no longer emissions and become more eco-friendly. Economy, Trade and Industry said that it
automatically attract a government guarantee. Jera accounts for about 10% of the has set a target of introducing 3mn tons of
“Changes to Vietnam’s power market country’s ‘s total emissions of carbon dioxide, ammonia fuel per year by 2030.
structure and emerging competition from with its thermal power plants using gas and
alternative and renewable technologies are coal as fuel. The joint venture aims to reduce
also facilitating a shift in focus away from its emissions to virtually zero by 2050 and
conventional coal power investments,” says plans to use ammonia as fuel for power
Thu Vu, Energy Analyst at the Institute for generation, and also hydrogen in stages.
Energy Economics and Financial Analysis By the 2040s, Jera hopes to operate power

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