Piston power |
Wärtsilä and US owner/operator trial H2
in existing power plant
emissions from its electric generating fleet by 60% by the end of 2025, and by 80% by
Wärtsilä, in collaboration with WEC Energy Group, (WEC), EPRI (Electric Power Research Institute) and Burns & McDonnell, is testing hydrogen fuel at the A.J. Mihm power plant in Michigan, USA. The project supports WEC’s ambition to reduce the CO2
the end of 2030, from 2005 levels, and to be net carbon neutral by 2050.
This will be one of the first cases where hydrogen is tested as a fuel in an existing gas- fueled power plant delivered by Wärtsilä. The 55 MW plant has three natural gas fuelled Wärtsilä 50SG engines. The plan is to test fuel blends of up to 25 vol% hydrogen mixed with natural gas. The Wärtsilä engines can operate with this level of hydrogen blended with gas with little to no modification needed. Though Wärtsilä engines can be operated on higher hydrogen blend levels, the Mihm tests will be restricted to the limit of 25 vol% hydrogen, in line with international equipment standard IEC/EN 60079-20-1
Above: A.J. Mihm power plant
“These hydrogen tests reinforce the viability of the internal combustion engine as a future-proof technology that plays a key role in decarbonising the power industry”, said Jon Rodriguez, director,
engine power plants, Wärtsilä North America. One engine will be selected for the test programme, during which time it will continue to deliver power to the grid. For defined engine load levels, the hydrogen content within the fuel will be gradually increased to the 25 vol% max. Measurements of engine’s performance will be carried out throughout the testing.
Wärtsilä says it has already successfully carried out engine tests at its facilities in Vaasa, Finland, and Bermeo, Spain, to assess the optimum engine parameters for operating with hydrogen fuel, and has gensets operating successfully on natural gas/hydrogen blends in a newbuild power plant at an offshore floating testbed in Singapore. Wärtsilä has supplied WEC Energy Group with seven Wärtsilä 50SG gas engines for its F. D. Kuester power plant in Michigan, in addition to those at Mihm.
mtu gensets approved for HVO
Rolls-Royce says it has taken a significant step towards meeting its net zero goals, set out last year, with the approval of its mtu Series 4000 and Series 1600 diesel engines for use with sustainable fuels in power generation applications.
Following successful trials on the test bench and in the field, Rolls-Royce business unit Power Systems has approved its Series 1600 and Series 4000 generator sets for use with EN15940 synthetic diesel fuels. In addition to GtL (gas to liquid) and CtL (coal to liquid), these fuels include also the sustainable fuels BtL (biomass to liquid), HVO (hydrotreated vegetable oil) and PtL (power to liquid) such as e-diesel. They can all replace conventional diesel fuel.
“There is already a lot of interest in HVO in
particular from many customers in the energy industry and data centre business who want to improve their carbon footprint,” explained Tobias Ostermaier, president, stationary power solutions at Rolls-Royce Power Systems. “The results from pilot customers show a significant reduction in greenhouse gases, nitrogen oxide and particulate emissions by using HVO instead of fossil diesel in their gensets.”
Waste vegetable and animal fats and used cooking oils can be used as base materials for HVO, which are converted into hydrocarbons by means of a catalytic reaction with the addition of hydrogen. Through this process, the fats and vegetable oils are adapted in their properties to diesel fuel and can supplement it as an admixture or replace it completely. The
advantages of HVO are clean combustion with a reduction in particulate emissions of up to 80%, nitrogen oxide emissions by an average of 8% and (depending on the manufacturing process and feedstock) CO2
emissions by up to 90% compared with fossil diesel.
The tests have confirmed that mtu engines perform equally well when using HVO (as compared with diesel) in terms of maximum power, load acceptance and fuel consumption. HVO is a drop-in fuel, which means that there are no adaptions needed to the diesel plant infrastructure, hardware or software for its use. In addition, the storage stability of this synthetic fuel is significantly better than that of biodiesel, making it even more attractive to emergency power system operators.
Bergen based microgrid Renewables District heating Intelligent system Microgrid controller Piller GridGate Main supply Energy storage Switch gear Marelli Motori generators Bergen engines Load Renewables
Within four months of Langley Holdings officially taking ownership of Bergen Engines from Rolls-Royce plc, it is launching a combined microgrid offering, drawing on the expertise of two other Langley subsidiaries, Piller Power Systems and Marelli Motori. H2
-ready combustion engines from Bergen Engines, incorporating Marelli Motori alternators, are combined with Piller’s stabilisation and storage systems, making it possible to optimise the various power sources in a microgrid, thereby reducing investment and operational costs, says Langley. Bergen Engines recently launched a comprehensive test programme with the aim of developing a recip retrofit that will accommodate hydrogen fuel content of up to 60%, and paving the way to 100% hydrogen for new engines in the future.
H2 ready Left: Langley microgrid concept 20 | June 2022|
www.modernpowersystems.com
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