A consortium led by Siemens Energy has run an industrial gas turbine on 100 % hydrogen. According to the company, this is the first successful test of its kind in the world. The project shows that conventional gas turbines can be converted to run on pure hydrogen.
The project partners conducted the test at the site of Smurfit Kappa, a French manufacturer of paper packaging. The test is part of a larger power-to-X-to-power demonstrator. It involves the generation, storage and re-generation of pure, green hydrogen in a converted natural gas turbine.
In an initial series of tests in 2022, the gas turbine was able to run on a hydrogen-natural gas mixture with an H₂ content of 30%. Now, according to Siemens, the "power-to-hydrogen-to-power demonstrator" has proven that turbines with "dry-low emissions" (DLE) technology can also be operated with up to 100 % hydrogen.
EU funding for HYFLEXPOWER
The consortium, called HYFLEXPOWER, aims to develop and operate the first fully integrated industrial-scale power-to-hydrogen-to-power plant. To this end, it has received substantial funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 Framework Program for Research and Innovation. Now that power generation has been tested, the next step is to expand operations to include industrial heat generation and other modes of operation.
As consortium leader, Siemens supplied the 1-MW electrolyzer and the SGT-400 industrial gas turbine. French energy company Engie built the hydrogen generation and supply equipment, as well as the nearly one-ton hydrogen tank for the demonstrator.
British engineering firm Centrax was responsible for upgrading the turbine package to ensure safe operation with hydrogen as fuel. DLR and Sweden's Lund University, the University of Duisburg-Essen and the UK's University College London contributed to the development of the hydrogen turbine technology. Arttic supported the operational project management, while the Greek University NTUA in Athens performed the economic, environmental and social analysis of the concept.
