Turbine technology |
And they need this security for the population of the city of Stockholm. It’s a very expensive investment, I can tell you. It’s a brownfield facility. So, they have to rip out a lot of equipment in an existing plant. It’s going to run on bio diesel, most likely HVO 100, which has very good properties, by the way, but they have to have new fuel infrastructure. It’s a major investment and illustrates what power producers have to do to comply with the requirement to be fossil free.” It also illustrates another key role for gas turbines: “purely as a backup in case things happen. There needs to be something that is possible to start and stop on command. We’re starting to see more and more of these kinds of installations, a gas turbine that will run very little, only in emergencies, on fossil free fuel.” A further point that Hans Holmström emphasises is the “super-importance” of converting the existing fleet from fossil burning to hydrogen and other non-fossil fuels. “There are tens of thousands of gas turbines out there. Not all of these will just die and disappear. A lot of them will be transformed step-by-step, burning more and more non-fossil fuels.”
One example is an SGT-800 located in Jingmen, China. The plan there is to upgrade first to 15% hydrogen capability and then to 30% and then progressively increase the proportion as “they lay their hands on more and more hydrogen.” This is “probably going to be one of the most important ways of decarbonising the energy system…sneaking in more and more and more hydrogen over time and using to the largest extent possible existing assets. The more we can use something that exists already today, the faster the transition will go…the hurdles will be lower.”
Meanwhile, in Germany, as an illustration of the coal-to-gas switch, with eventual potential transition to hydrogen, two new Finspång- supplied 62 MWe SGT-800s (with waste heat recovery) are to be installed at EnBW’s Stuttgart-Münster district heating cogen plant, replacing coal-fired boilers at the site. Initially, the new gas turbines will run on natural gas. “The fuel switch from coal to gas in Münster…will allow us to continue to have sufficient power generating capacity in the coming years,” said EnBW managing board member Georg Stamatelopoulos. “This is the only way we can support the expansion of renewable energy.”
But EnBW is already thinking about hydrogen, with a time frame of about 10-12 years. Siemens Energy provides assurances that the new gas turbines will in fact be able to run on 75% hydrogen from the time they’re shipped in 2025, and they are described as “ready for up to 100% hydrogen”, with “all systems constructed from the very beginning in such a way that the natural gas can be replaced with hydrogen as quickly and completely as possible.”
“We can’t yet reliably predict when green hydrogen will be available in sufficient quantity and at affordable prices,” Georg Stamatelopoulos explains, “but the technology should be in place by that time. We’re not going to put the cart before the horse.”
Looking towards net zero Looking ahead to how gas turbines might be deployed in a net zero power grid of the future, the Finspång site is the location of a demonstration project called the Zero
Above: SGT-700 in the test rig at Finspång
Emission Hydrogen Turbine Center (ZEHTC), a collaboration between Siemens Energy and five partners (including Linde, Chalmers University of Technology and University of Bologna). The ZEHTC has received funding for 2019-2023 from the EU via ERA-Net Smart Energy Systems and from the Swedish Energy Agency.
It consists of a microgrid connected to gas turbines undergoing testing, along with PV, electrolyser, hydrogen storage and batteries,. Hydrogen is produced using excess electricity generated during turbine tests and by PV. It is stored and can then be used in turbine hydrogen co-firing trials. The ZEHTC is intended as a real-life demonstration of what the future net zero energy system might look like, with “gas turbines working hand in hand with renewables, hydrogen and batteries”, says Åsa Lyckström, sustainability strategist and executive board member of Siemens Energy AB (Sweden).
Hydrogen production
Turbine testing
Battery and control system
Hydrogen storage
Solar PV
Above: The Zero Emission Hydrogen Turbine Center at Finspång 30 | November/December 2022|
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