Gas turbine developments |
Gas turbines, decarbonisation and alternative fuels
Report from ETN Global’s 12th International Gas Turbine Conference, Brussels, 14-15 October, 2025 James Varley
“You can’t have an energy related meeting these days without talking about data centres”, remarked Bobby Noble of EPRI at ETN Global’s 12th International Gas Turbine Conference (IGTC). And of course IGTC 25, Brussels, 14-15 October, proved to be no exception, with Bobby noting a shift to smaller gas turbines for data centre projects to get round five-year delivery delays being experienced for larger machines. That was another recurring theme of the event: the current, partly-datacentre-driven, boom being experienced by the gas turbine business, resulting in unacceptably long lead times. A nice problem to have, you might say, “positive pain” is how Christer Björkqvist, Managing Director of ETN Global, describes it, “what you feel when pushing yourself the limit, it hurts but you are making progress.” Dealing with immediate supply chain challenges arising from burgeoning demand has to some extent replaced longer term concerns, eg reducing emissions, among the preoccupations of gas turbine market players. Nevertheless, the stated aim of the Brussels event was “advancing turbomachinery innovations and strategies for net zero pathways” and a number of the presentations addressed the topic of decarbonising gas turbines, with the idea that they can be a destination rather than a transition technology, having plenty to offer in
support of grid stability thanks to their rotating masses.
H2
still on the agenda, but future uncertain
Enthusiasm, once huge, for hydrogen as a potential route to clean power generation via gas turbines has dissipated somewhat in recent times – due to a combination of factors including high costs, demand uncertainties, regulatory issues, and lack of required infrastructure development – but several presentations touched on hydrogen based projects.
In Asia, in countries such as Japan and Korea, fuel is relatively expensive, so motivation to switch to low carbon fuel is still significant. As described by Prof Toshinori Watanabe of the University of Tokyo, hydrogen appears to remain on the agenda in Japan, at least according to the 7th Strategic Energy Plan, issued by METI in February 2025. He noted that Mitsubishi, Kawasaki, and IHI are all actively involved in developing hydrogen and ammonia fuelled gas turbine technologies.
Nicolas Demougeot, Global Chief Engineer, PSM, outlined a PSM project at the Hanwha-Total Daesan refinery in Korea where a 1992 vintage 80 MW 7EA gas turbine, with modifications, has been successfully run on hydrogen. The mofications included installation of a FlameSheet
combustion system, micromixer style pilot (employing AM) highly resistant to flashback, novel fuel delivery system and upgraded control logic. “Results were excellent and we went well beyond the original target of 50%vol hydrogen,” Demougeot said, with the project demonstrating sub 5 ppm NOx
at baseload and 59.5% hydrogen.
He prefaced his description of the project with a reminder of the context: “Earth’s average temperature has been above the 1.5°C threshold for over 22 months, which has never happened before.”
He also pointed out that the idea of the hydrogen economy is not new, noting that, for example, British scientist J. B. S. Haldane talked about what he called the “hydrogen path” back in 1923.
Demougeot placed a particular emphasis on safety, observing that hydrogen is highly flammable, potentially explosive and needs to be handled with care. For the Daesan project, HAZOP studies were performed that led to the installation of 25 flammable gas detectors, a very extensive SHE (safety, health and environmental) plan was written, implemented and enforced, the site team went through regular training and drills, and there was a mandatory leak test of the hydrogen sub-station every time the trailers were connected to ensure a (close to) leak free system.
Moerdijk power plant site, where RWE, along with GE Vernova, has been looking at converting a 9FB gas fired turbine to hydrogen. Implementation, however, looks uncertain due to challenges identified on the upstream side of the value chain. Photo: RWE
28 | November/December 2025|
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