China is accelerating construction of what will become the world's largest integrated green hydrogen-ammonia-methanol complex in Songyuan, Jilin Province, northeast China, a project that will convert wind and solar power into "green petroleum" for global markets.

The plant is scheduled to commence operations by the end of this year, with the first batch of green ammonia destined for international shipping fuel.

As part of the China Energy Engineering Group's Songyuan Hydrogen Energy Industrial Park, the complex harnesses a 50-MW photovoltaic array and a 590-MW wind farm to convert renewable electricity into green ammonia.

Through electrolysis, it produces hydrogen that is then combined with nitrogen extracted from the air, and it faces no natural resource constraints, requiring only water, wind, solar resources, and air.

A major engineering challenge facing the world has been synchronizing intermittent renewable power with the continuous demands of ammonia production.

At the control center of the Songyuan green ammonia project in Jilin, the brain of the entire operation, fluctuating upstream renewable energy from wind and solar is seamlessly coupled with the stable downstream chemical processes, ensuring that every ton of ammonia produced meets internationally recognized green ammonia carbon-emission standards.

The Songyuan project features the world's largest hydrogen-storage facility, comprising 15 tanks each with a water volume equivalent of 2,000 standard cubic meters, which serve as a "buffer pool" to absorb surplus green hydrogen during peak renewable generation periods, ensuring a steady supply of green feedstock for ammonia synthesis.

The project also applies flexible ammonia-synthesis technology for the first time, enabling load operations to adjust between 30 percent and 110 percent of rated capacity.

According to staff there, another major technical challenge in green ammonia production is the electrolytic production of green hydrogen from renewable power. The project addressed this innovatively through a "horse race" mechanism, pitting China's top hydrogen electrolyzer manufacturers against one another on the same platform.

In the hydrogen production workshop, 64 electrolyzers, each producing 1,050 cubic meters of hydrogen per hour, have been installed, making it the world's largest facility of its kind.

Wu Liang, a chief engineer of the Shanghai Electric Hydrogen, said that his team has improved the alkaline electrolyzing technique to speed up response and offer a new solution for green-hydrogen production.

Domestic manufacturers say close competition on a shared platform is driving rapid improvement in electrolyzer design and response times.

"Each company encounters different problems and each company's leading edge is different. By bringing together the country's top-notch technologies on a single platform, we learn from one another and keep improving. This is a very good example of why China can rapidly upgrade products and quickly achieve sci-tech breakthroughs," Wu said.

The project has driven rapid innovation and cost reductions in domestic hydrogen technology. Falling costs are already accelerating the shift to green ammonia as a marine fuel, making the world's first green-ammonia ship-fueling operation recently accomplished in Dalian, a coastal city in northeast China's Liaoning Province.

Global conventional ammonia production exceeds 200 million tons a year, with China accounting for one third of the total, data showed.

As green-ammonia technology matures and becomes cheaper, its demand is expected to exceed 100 million tons by 2035, according to industry observers.

Yang Kun, executive vice chairman of the China Electricity Council, said leveraging the full wind-solar supply chain at scale will both cut production costs and create a green premium for new products.

"China's total wind and solar installed capacity has exceeded 1.7 billion kilowatts at present, already surpassing thermal power to become the largest electricity source, with more than 200 million kilowatts of new renewable capacity added each year. Making good use of the huge market advantages of the full wind-solar industry chain will, on the one hand, lower the production cost of 'green petroleum,' and, on the other hand, expand the green-premium advantages brought by new industries, allowing 'green petroleum' to become a new green-power product that drives green, low-carbon development," he said.