Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems (MHPS) has ordered for the first advanced-class gas turbine, which is designed to transition of Utah’s Intermountain Power Agency (IPA) to renewable hydrogen fuel. Purchase of MHPS’s advanced J-series gas turbines is a part of IPA’s Intermountain Power Project (IPP) to sequentially transition from coal to natural gas and ultimately to renewable hydrogen fuel by 2045.
The M501JAC gas turbine is the company’s latest J-series air-cooled (JAC) model, which applied steam cooling to the combustor and raised its turbine inlet temperature (TIT) to 1,600C and efficiency to 62%. It also features an optimized cooling structure for the blades and vanes to have 64% combined cycle efficiency, which makes it well-suited to an eventual conversion to 100% hydrogen.
According to MHPSA President and CEO Paul Browning, the M501JAC units will be guaranteed to be able to combust a mix of 30% hydrogen and 70% natural gas starting in 2025. Between 2025 and 2045, the fuel mixture will be systematically increased to 100% renewable hydrogen, while MHPS is still developing a combustion technology that will be capable of firing 100% hydrogen fuel.
Full article can be found in here by Sonal Patel from POWER Magazine.
