Egypt has signed deals for green ammonia projects worth $33 billion with companies including BP, Masdar and Germany's DAI.In one project worth $11 billion, Egypt's sovereign wealth fund will partner with Germany's FAI Infastruktur to build a green ammonia plant in East Port.

Another project, with a total amount of $14 billion, will see the country build another green ammonia plant at Ain Sukhna Port in the Gulf of Suez in partnership with BP, the Masdar Division and a subsidiary of the UAE company Infinity Power.

Like green hydrogen, green ammonia is seen as integral to the energy transition because of its theoretical ability to help decarbonize hard-to-decarbonize sectors, such as in the case of ammonia, fertilizer production.

The problem with green hydrogen and its product ammonia is that the process of making them is quite expensive. They are called green because they are produced by hydro-electrolysis and are powered by wind or solar energy.

However, the intermittency of wind and solar power makes this power expensive, as does the energy intensity of the hydroelectrolysis process. Green hydrogen production also requires a lot of water, which also adds to the cost.

Egypt has been ambitious to develop its wind and solar resources, and the Green ammonia project is part of that ambition. Earlier this year, the country said it planned to build around 16.5 MW of new solar capacity this year with investments provided by the European Union. It also plans to add 10 GW of wind capacity, with construction scheduled to begin in 2026. The Egyptian government has announced plans to generate 42% of the country's electricity from renewable sources by 2030. Editor/Xu Shengpeng