Amogy claims significant leap in zero carbon vessel designs

Amogy is a New York-based company that designs and builds fuel cell technology. The company has designed a system that uses a catalyst to split ammonia into its constituent parts, nitrogen and hydrogen, that can then be used in a fuel cell to generate electrical energy.

The fuel cell technology will be used to power the auxiliary electrical system on the VLAC design, but Seoghoon Woo, CEO at Amogy, told Seatrade Maritime News in an interview that he expects to scale up the technology and the ammonia infrastructure to reduce the price to competitive levels.

“The ammonia footprint is similar to conventional fuel,” said Woo, “The cost of ammonia as a fuel is higher but this will be reduced as production is ramped up, currently there are 500 million tonnes of ammonia produced annually, another 10 million tonnes is under construction, for 2030, and a further 100 million tonnes is in the pre-construction phase.”

Woo believes that ammonia can quickly reach cost parity, within four to five years. He said at today’s prices the fuel is not compatible with conventional fuels, but with carbon abatement measures, such as FuelEU, “it will be much cheaper.”

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According to Woo Amogy has already teamed up with North Sea Container Line (NCL) and Hanwha Ocean to develop a 300 teu vessel which will include Amogy power. The vessel will have an ammonia genset, a fuel cell and ammonia cracking technology, with a chemical catalyst that will need replacing every five years.

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The VLAC design, will have a capacity of 93,000 cu metre ammonia with Amogy’s technology providing 1400 kW of auxiliary power, equivalent to a diesel generator.

However, Amogy is already involved in retrofitting a tugboat which will use its technology and is billed as the first vessel to use ammonia as a fuel, with the expectation that it will be operational this summer.