On April 27, 2022, the 8.3MW pure ammonia burner developed by the Institute of Energy of Hefei Comprehensive National Science Center (hereinafter referred to as "Institute of Energy") in cooperation with Anhui Province Energy Group, the first of its kind in China, was successfully ignited at one time in the 300MW thermal power unit of Tongling Power Generation Co., Ltd. Under Anhui Province Energy Group and operated stably for more than 2 hours. The successful ignition means that it is technically feasible to achieve the carbon reduction target in coal-fired power generating unit boilers through ammonia-doped combustion, which marks the key progress in the demonstration project of comprehensive utilization of ammonia for power generation, and is of milestone significance for the realization of carbon dioxide emission reduction in thermal power plants in our province and even in the whole country.

The demonstration project of comprehensive utilization of ammonia energy for power generation was initiated by the Institute of Energy in 2021 and is a major scientific and technological project under the research and development of the Research Center for Hydrogen Energy and Ammonia Utilization under the Institute. The technical path of the project is "photovoltaic power generation → electrolysis of water for hydrogen production→ synthesis of ammonia → ammonia transportation → ammonia-doped combustion in thermal power plants". The main objective is to achieve the goal of effectively reducing the total carbon dioxide emissions and energy consumption of thermal power plants by gradually increasing the proportion of ammonia-blended combustion, and to provide key technical support for the "three changes" linkage of coal-fired power plants. The strategic significance is to upgrade coal-fired power plants to reduce carbon emissions with the principle of“establishing the new before abolishing the old”, to boost the transformation of the energy structure, and to implement the strategic requirements of carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals .

In September 2021, the Institute of Energy and Anhui Province Energy Group jointly set up the "Anhui Energy Collaborative Innovation Center". The two sides jointly organized the implementation of the project and they chose to conduct experiments in the 300 MW (300,000 kW) generator unit of Tongling Power Generation Co., Ltd. under Anhui Province Energy Group. The ammonia-doped combustion test of the 300,000-kilowatt unit overcame the adverse effects such as the COVID-19 and completed various tasks such as burner design and manufacturing, test scheme preparation, equipment and pipeline layout, control logic configuration, etc. with stable combustion and one-shot success. Next, key equipment such as burners will be further optimized based on the test data, and will be gradually extended to 600,000 and 1,000,000 MW units to form a larger scale demonstration application.