Enrico Rubertus, Director of the NACAG Secretariat contact@nitricacidaction.org
The long-term objective of Nitric Acid Climate Action Group (NACAG) is to incentivise the installation of effective N2O abatement technology in every nitric acid plant worldwide. NACAG’s vision is for the N2O emissions of an entire industrial sector to be mitigated on a global scale. The NACAG was launched by the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU) in order to increase mitigation action in the chemical industry. Considering technical and economic aspects, GHG abatement in the nitric acid sector is generally easy to implement and can be done at relatively low cost. This is the reason why this sector was chosen in the first place.
The NACAG initiative offers financial and technical support to individual nitric acid plant operators until the end of 2023. While the technical support is available to all governments and nitric acid producers worldwide, the financial support is bound to the condition that the government of the country in which the plant is located commits to sustaining the emission abatement from year 2024 onwards. Support is available through grants and climate auctions. This support covers not only the procurement and installation of the abatement technology and monitoring equipment required, but also any necessary plant modifications and labour costs related to monitoring and maintenance.
More details on financial support can be found here and more details on technical support can be found here.
The German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU)
Currently under development
GIZ will act as grant managing and contracting authority. It is committed to ensuring that the process for assessing applications under the NACAG Support Facility is fair, transparent, and in accordance with the Green Climate Fund Performance Indicators.
The activities eligible for funding from the NACAG Support Facility are the following:
Purchase, shipping, installation and maintenance of a technical device or technology that either remove N2O (i) through the installation of a secondary N2O destruction catalyst in the oxidation reactor („secondary abatement“) or (ii) from the tail gas through either thermal destruction or catalytic decomposition („tertiary abatement“);
Purchase, shipping, and installation of monitoring equipment;
Administrative overheads.
ODA countries that have committed to take political measures to reduce nitrous oxide emissions from nitric acid production by signing the Statement of Undertaking
The Grant Application Programme is open. The Grant Application Notice can be downloaded here. Eligible grant applications qualify for due diligence assessment as well as intervention advice. In the due diligence assessment framework, GIZ will evaluate applicants‘ technical, legal, financial and operational capacity and the existence of environmental, social, health and gender safeguards and sufficient policy guarantees. In case of a positive outcome of the due diligence assessment, GIZ will adopt a grant award decision and issue a grant agreement for signature to the plant operator.