Ammonia (NH3) Storage for Massive PV Electricity

The fast growth of ground photovoltaic (PV) installation and restricted consumption of generated PV electricity result in massive unused/excess PV electricity in the north-west region of China. This paper proposes a solution using ammonia (NH3) as an energy medium to convert the excess solar energy into stable chemical energy. Analysis of the energy efficiency, technical feasibility and economy of solar-to-ammonia conversion concludes that ammonia is a promising medium for large scale storage of renewable energy, e.g. PV electricity. The solar-to-ammonia conversion offers a great advantage of storing massive amounts of excess energy for wider application. (C) 2018 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/) Selection and peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the 12th International Photovoltaic Power Generation and Smart Energy Conference & Exhibition (SNEC 2018).