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Date
22.12.2025
Focal areas
Climate protection/ energy efficiency
Regions
South Africa
Linked project
CoalCO2-X: Stakeholder dialogue "H2 ramp-up in key industries: Potential for green ammonia in the fertiliser industry"
Supply chain disruptions caused by the pandemic, the war in Ukraine and the subsequent sanctions led to gaps in food and energy supplies across much of Europe. To strengthen the resilience of the domestic fertiliser and agricultural industry, the German Energy Agency (dena) organised a dialogue between stakeholders along the entire value chain. The results of this dialogue were summarised in a position paper and discussed in a face-to-face workshop in autumn 2025. The CLIENT II project CoalCO2-X made several contributions to this.
On behalf of the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy, dena conducted the stakeholder dialogue "H2 ramp-up in key industries: Potential for green ammonia in the fertiliser industry".
With the aim of paving the way for renewable or lower-carbon fertilisers, dena organised several online workshops in spring/summer 2025 on the following topics:
- Location security and resilience;
- Marketing and labelling of renewable/lower-carbon products;
- Greenhouse gas accounting and savings potential
Representatives from ammonia and fertiliser manufacturers, plant engineers, agriculture, food companies, associations, research institutes, and governmental and non-governmental organisations developed position papers on the above topics during the online workshops.
Leveraging his experience from previous collaborations with industry and high-level decision-makers, Dr Lénárd-István Csepei from the CoalCO2-X project played an active role in the workshops. In the first workshop, he provided an overview of the dynamics of the global ammonia market and analysed the production capacities and prices for renewable/low-carbon ammonia. Using a what-if analysis of the energy transition in German ammonia production, he emphasised the importance of renewable upstream infrastructure for resilience. He provided techno-economic insights into another dimension of CO2 emission reduction: the modernisation of existing plants by increasing energy efficiency and/or using renewable hydrogen as a raw material. In the second topic, he examined the factors that can increase willingness to pay for more expensive renewable fertilisers and the resulting agricultural products. In the last topic, he estimated the greenhouse gas intensity of the ammonia synthesis industry.
The contents were presented in September 2025 during a stakeholder dialogue in Berlin in the presence of the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy and dena. Dr Csepei participated in this meeting. In the interactive part of the workshop, he emphasised the need for international development partnerships.
For more information on CoalCO2-X, visit the project page.