EUGINE Develops Hydrogen-Readiness Concept for Gas Power Plants

01 July 2021

With the publication of the EU’s “hydrogen strategy for a climate-neutral Europe” in July 2020, hydrogen was recognised as key priority in Europe’s ambitions to become climate neutral by 2050.

As from 2025, hydrogen should become an intrinsic part of an integrated energy system, playing a role in balancing a renewables-based electricity system and thus providing flexibility. Hydrogen produced from renewable electricity will be stored and used in power plants to ensure the resilience of the electricity system, replacing natural gas.

While, in the long term, hydrogen should generally be supplied through pure hydrogen grids, in the short and medium term the blending of certain levels of hydrogen into the natural gas pipeline will be a valuable option during the transition and help develop the hydrogen market.

To ensure new gas power plants are future-proof, equipment manufacturers are making their engines and plants “H2-Ready”: new gas engines will be designed and built to operate with a defined share of hydrogen or be prepared to be easily upgraded to a higher share whenever the hydrogen becomes available.

With this new common H2-Ready concept, the European engine power plant industry will voluntarily indicate the hydrogen-readiness level on every newly built power plant. This hydrogen-readiness level will be defined by the share of hydrogen and the level of technical adaptions needed to reach the desired H2-readiness level in the future.

The hydrogen-readiness label will thus allow customers to decide for what hydrogen shares (up to 10%, up to 25% or 100%) the plant shall be suited. Modifications for the use with a higher hydrogen level will be possible and normally not exceed 30% of the costs for a new similar plant.

For existing plants, a common H2-readiness checklist will help identifying the relevant key components and challenges, and thus allow customers and OEMs to evaluate the necessary retrofitting effort for each plant.