An R&D and Social Implementation Plan for "Fuel Ammonia Supply Chain Establishment" Projects Formulated

1. Background and purpose

Towards the goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2050, METI has established a Green Innovation Fund at the level of 2 trillion yen under the FY2020 Tertiary Supplementary Budget and decided to assign the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO) to its operation. Based on specific goals shared by the public and private sectors, the government will provide continuous support over the next ten years to companies and other organizations committed to take on challenges toward achieving the ambitious goals as one of the most critical business issues. The support will assist efforts ranging from research and development (R&D) through demonstrations to social implementation of the outcomes.

In order to ensure the proper and efficient execution of the fund, the Green Innovation Project Committee under the Industrial Structure Council finalized the Fund Allocation Policy for Each Field. Based on this policy, field-specific working groups established under the Committee deliberate on things such as the priority and appropriateness of the amount to be implemented by the fund for each project. Then, the divisions and offices in charge of the project at the responsible ministries formulate the content of each project as an "R&D and Social Implementation Plan," and start calling for applicants sequentially.

Today, METI formulated an R&D and Social Implementation Plan for "Fuel Ammonia Supply Chain Establishment" projects based on discussions at the Working Group on the Field of Energy Structure Transformation and the public opinions that were submitted.

2. Main contents of the R&D and Social Implementation Plan for "Fuel Ammonia Supply Chain Establishment" projects

• Aim to achieve an ammonia supply cost in the high 10-yen range per Nm³ by 2030 by establishing technologies necessary to reduce the cost, such as technology for producing blue ammonia at low temperatures and pressures with greater efficiency, and technology for producing green ammonia from renewable energy sources without using hydrogen.
• Aim to achieve domestic introduction of 30 million tons of fuel ammonia per year in 2050, by promoting high-ratio co-combustion and mono-fuel combustion of ammonia in power generation based on two approaches: increasing the ammonia mixing rate in coal boilers and achieving ammonia mono-fuel combustion in gas turbines.

3. Future plans

NEDO will open a call for applicants to the "Fuel Ammonia Supply Chain Establishment" projects soon.

Related document

• R&D and Social Implementation Plan for the "Fuel Ammonia Supply Chain Establishment" Projects (Outline) (PDF:203KB)

Division in Charge

• [About the fund in general]

  Carbon Neutrality Project Promotion Office, Environmental Policy Division, Industrial Science and Technology Policy and Environment Bureau

• [About "fuel ammonia supply chain establishment" projects]

  Policy Planning Division, Natural Resources and Fuel Department, Agency for Natural Resources and Energy