Project lead: Shapinsay Development Trust
Local Energy Challenge Fund award amount: £25,000
Area: Orkney Islands
Vision
At present, the cost of shipping both diesel and fertiliser to the island is high. This project aims to solve the problem by demonstrating how the use of spare electricity from the island’s wind turbine can be used to produce synthetic diesel for local farm transport and urea for use as fertiliser.
Project
This project will use the spare electricity from the island by connecting a rapid response PEM electrolyser to the turbine (behind the meter) and operate this at times of curtailment. A Fischer- Tropsch (FT) reactor will also be used to produce synthetic diesel through combining stored hydrogen and CO2 produced at a local distillery to produce diesel for use in island transport.
The project will also combine N2 from the air (using pressure swing absorption) and will combine this with H2 to produce ammonia which can then be combined with additional CO2 to produce urea (fertiliser) for use in farms throughout the islands.
