Mapping Opportunities for Small-Scale Electrified Ammonia to Improve Fertilizer Access and Supply-Chain Resilience

Ammonia-based synthetic nitrogen fertilizers are indispensable for global food security, yet today’s supply is dominated by fossil-fuel-based, centralized production (largely natural gas and coal) and long-distance transport. This structure creates simultaneous climate, affordability, and resilience challenges: ammonia production is highly energy- and carbon-intensive, while supply disruptions and high delivered prices disproportionately affect import-dependent regions, particularly in the Global South, widening yield gaps between potential and actual crop production.

We present a spatially explicit modelling framework to assess low-carbon, small-scale and decentralized ammonia supply options through the full delivered-cost lens, focusing on electrified pathways based on electrolytic hydrogen as alternatives to conventional fossil routes. Using high-resolution geospatial representations of ammonia supply (including a harmonized dataset of >400 existing plants and major import hubs), nitrogen fertilizer demand, and transport infrastructure and costs, we formulate a mixed-integer linear program that allocates supply to demand and selects least-cost routing to quantify delivered ammonia prices. By explicitly separating production and logistics components, the framework identifies where transport markups and supply-chain fragility create favorable conditions for smaller-scale, decentralized production, even when production costs are higher.

Results show that transportation is a major (and highly uneven) driver of delivered fertilizer prices. Globally, transport adds ~23% to delivered costs, but in many countries in Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa it exceeds 50%; in remote regions, transportation alone can approximately double end-user prices as ammonia travels thousands of kilometers. In these settings, decentralized electrified production could improve access, reduce exposure to disruptions and price volatility, and support sustainable agricultural intensification, but cost competitiveness hinges on local electricity prices: decentralized electrolytic ammonia becomes viable only below roughly 30–60 USD/MWh, implying the need for targeted financial support, infrastructure upgrades, or policy mechanisms that lower effective power costs.

A U.S. specific case-study illustrates how the same framework can benchmark centralized versus decentralized (grid- and renewables-powered) pathways in a mature market, highlighting the central role of electricity prices and logistics in determining competitiveness. Overall, the approach supports integrated assessment of climate–cost–resilience trade-offs to guide sustainable fertilizer and energy transition planning.