Modeling of an Ammonia Infrastructure for Maritime Fuels

Kurzfassung

As the shipping sector undergoes decarbonization, various low- and zero-emission fuels are being investigated to replace conventional fuels. Ammonia is an ambitious future fuel because of its potential for CO2-free combustion and an existing, well-established global distribution infrastructure. However, massive investments would be necessary to expand the infrastructure for the use as a maritime fuel. To gain a better understanding of the infrastructure design and behavior, an optimization model was developed and applied to analyze future ammonia infrastructure scenarios under varying influencing parameters and constraints. It was found that constraints have a greater influence on the optimal design than influencing parameters. Furthermore, it was observed that the balance of total annual cost and investment requirements had a significant impact on the infrastructure design. These findings highlight the importance of carefully selecting which investments and potential synergies are considered in the infrastructure model and emphasize the necessity of evaluating the infrastructure as a whole when making design or investment decisions. To make more specific design recommendations and support investment decisions, more accurate scenarios with a stronger data basis are necessary. Therefore, the developed optimization model provides a flexible basis to adapt to different scenarios and support future planning decisions for the maritime fuel infrastructure.