| Turbine technology
ammonia out of it makes it much simpler to transport. You can transport it as a fluid, almost. And we know ammonia. Historically we know about handling ammonia. So, we’re looking at being able to crack ammonia into nitrogen and hydrogen and then firing it. Today we promise 50% cofiring with fully cracked ammonia. We want to go to 100% of course as soon as we possibly can.”
He notes that thinking about alternative fuels for industrial gas turbines is not a new thing for Siemens Energy. Around 15 years ago we started “testing different kinds of fossil free fuels and other types of fuel.”
But “it was in 2016 that it really took off and this is when we started to be able to 3D print the combustion systems. Because, for instance, if you burn hydrogen, it burns so quickly that it heats up the metallic parts that are close to the flame. But with 3D printing, we can make cooling patterns and cooling holes inside the metal that actually allows us to manage the process of burning 100% hydrogen. So 3D printed parts are a very important enabler for being able to go with hydrogen. It’s very hard otherwise to manufacture combustion parts that can manage the hydrogen.”
With additive manufacturing, “we download the new combustor design into the 3D printer, which makes the parts” and these parts “can then be tested quickly either in our clean energy centre in Berlin or in our test rigs at Finspång. And then we do full scale testing. It collapses the time from a concept to a fully functional component. In the old days, it would take maybe half a year from drawings to completed burner. Now we can do that turn around in two to three weeks. This means we can do fast prototyping, which is super important for us when we deal with all these new fossil free fuels. They have different properties that we need to manage and it gives the designers an opportunity to play around a little bit. You don’t play around with something that takes half a year to get delivered. But if you
“The five uncomfortable truths about the energy transition that we work with” (Karim Amin, Siemens Energy):
1. Fossil fuels, eg natural gas co-fired with hydrogen, are part of the answer. Expansion of renewables is not possible without using bridge technologies. Power grids are designed for a steady supply of electricity to avoid blackouts. Every step towards being “greener” is better than not taking any steps, and better than waiting for perfect solutions
2. Renewables don’t come for free. Massive investments are needed, and we are only just beginning to come to terms with the costs. The raw materials requirements for sustainable energy systems will also have a profound impact on the geopolitical landscape
3. Technology is not the issue. Fair distribution of climate change’s costs and benefits as well as new arrangements for social and economic growth must be addressed
4. Infrastructure is an issue, for example to enable sector coupling, which is essential to achieve climate goals, and accommodate an influx of distributed generation. Bringing new transmission lines into service currently takes over ten years, and requires a dramatic increase in capital spending
5. We can’t do this alone. Addressing climate change requires co-operation: between governments, businesses and consumers
can play around at low cost very quickly, you can really develop everything that you dreamt of without losing a lot of money and time.” Although currently there’s “a lot of hype” surrounding hydrogen, “with a lot of discussion in every magazine every time you open it” (MPS being no exception), “very little is actually happening”, says Hans Holmström, not least because there is “very little hydrogen existing on the open market.”
Nevertheless, there are a few projects worldwide where hydrogen and other alternative fuels are being used in Siemens Energy industrial gas turbines.
One example is Braskem’s 2 x SGT-600 combined heat and power plant in Brazil, supplied, built, owned and operated by Siemens Energy. Equipped with a 3rd generation DLE system, this will cofire up to 60% vol hydrogen (albeit grey), with NOx
emissions not exceeding 25 ppm. “It’s up and
running...it’s happening now”, says Hans.
Green fuel capabilities (vol %) of Siemens Energy DLE- equipped industrial gas turbines
In France, at Saillat-sur-Vienne, an EU funded Power-to-X-to-Power project, HYFLEXPOWER, is underway at a CHP plant that will demonstrate 100% hydrogen cofiring in an SGT-400 gas turbine, with first firing planned for 2023. An example of a green-biodiesel-fuelled gas turbine project is an SGT-800 based simple cycle back up power plant being provided to Stockholm Exergi, with commercial operation in 2023.
Stockholm Exergi set themselves a target a few years ago of being fossil free by 2025, and to do that, “they need to have some backup power in case things really go wrong, there is no wind, there is no solar power and they’ve run out of stored electricity”, notes Hans. “So they came to us and said can you sell us a gas turbine that can run on fossil-free fuels?” In fact, “this one will run only maybe 50 to 100 or maybe 200 hours per year. That’s all. It’s mainly going to stand still, but it’s going to be there in case it is needed.
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