This week’s blog post is the last series of reviewing ETN Global’s recently published a new report, entitled “ETN Hydrogen Gas Turbines – The Path Towards a Zero-Carbon Gas Turbine.” Â The main objectives of this report is to highlight potential benefits and challenges on the hydrogen uses in gas turbines. The report also assesses preconditions to the implementation of a hydrogen power plant, requirements for retrofit of existing gas turbines, and current capabilities of gas turbines burning hydrogen.
01. Advantages of Hydrogen Gas Turbines
02. Pre-Conditions of a Hydrogen Power Plant
03. Hydrogen Combustion
04. Retrofit of Existing Gas Turbines
05. Current Capabilities of Gas Turbines Burning Hydrogen
05. Current Capabilities of Gas Turbines Burning Hydrogen
In this chapter, ETN provides an overview of the currently acceptable share of hydrogen contents that can be burned in gas turbines. ETN discusses that major work still remains to be done in order to qualify gas turbines for high hydrogen content gaseous fuels, even though considerable efforts have been put by all gas turbine manufacturers. Major experience with high hydrogen content fuels has been accumulated with gas turbine products developed for the combustion of syngas with a H2 concentration rangebetween 30 to 60% vol. of H2.
Majority of gas turbines OEMs developed for syngas applications can be adapted to run on natural gas and hydrogen mixtures with significantly high hydrogen content (60% to 100%). Though these gas turbine engines require special combustion technology such as diffusion burner, dilution with N2 and/or steam, and water inject, in order to cope with challenges of hydrogen combustion, often still does not meet lower NOx emission levels.
Thus, ETN emphasizes the ultimate research and development target is the achievement of state-of-the-art low NOx emissions, less than 25ppm, with fuel gas mixtures contents by increasing amounts of hydrogen from electrolysis up to 100% H2.
The current dry low emission (DLE) combustion techniques are the main R&D subject to base new and modified combustion technologies. With such adapted DLE combustion systems OEMs successfully tested gas turbine products operated with fuel gas mixtures with up to 20% to 30% vol. of hydrogen.
More detailed overview per OEM is given in ETN’s full report on Hydrogen Gas Turbines. This report can be found in Here.
