Electrification of the Green Urea Production Process: Toward Sustainable and Low-Carbon Pathways

Abstract Low-carbon fertilizer production requires redesigning conventional urea manufacturing unde210 Col:2438r electrified, renewable-based schemes. This study evaluates a fully electrified green urea pathway integrating water electrolysis, cryogenic air separation, ammonia synthesis, carbon capture, and urea synthesis under hybrid renewable electricity supply. The validated process produces 42.57 t/h of urea (approximately 373 kt/yr) with a fully electrified demand of 3,168,588 MW h/yr, corresponding to 8.50 MW h/t urea. Fourteen scenarios combining solar photovoltaic, onshore wind, 0/170/340 MW h storage, and grid electricity were retained. A location-neutral 8,760 h energy-material integration layer was coupled to the steady-state process model to evaluate renewable intermittency, storage states, and hydrogen buffering without altering scenario definitions. Eleven scenarios were operationally feasible after renewable adequacy corrections of 0.3–9.0%, whereas Cases 1, 10, and 12 were infeasible under their original storage and backup architecture. Annual environmental screening alone proved insufficient to establish continuous operability, and Case 11 emerged as a balanced high-renewable configuration.