(Essen / Lingen) – The Essen-based energy company RWE Generation SE and the Japanese turbine manufacturer Kawasaki Heavy Industries are planning to build a hydrogen-powered gas turbine in Lingen, Lower Saxony. The aim is to test the reconversion of hydrogen into electricity at the RWE Emsland gas power plant. According to the company, the project is “one of the first in the world” in which a gas turbine converts 100 percent hydrogen into electricity on an industrial scale. The plant with an output of 34 megawatts could go into operation in mid-2024.
However, one technical aspect puts this ambitious project into perspective for the time being: the Kawasaki gas turbine can be “operated with any combination of natural gas and hydrogen,” explains RWE. “The amount of green gas available for reconversion into electricity” will “often fluctuate” during the ramp-up of the hydrogen economy before continuous operation is possible.
Test run in load ranges from 30 to 100 percent
During the pilot phase, the turbine should be tested primarily in operating load ranges between 30 and 100 percent. “This corresponds to the load curves of gas turbines that would be expected in a power grid with a high proportion of renewable energies that fluctuate due to weather conditions.”
During the course of the project, two combustion systems developed by Kawasaki and already tested in 1-megawatt versions in Kobe, Japan, will be used. In Lingen, this technology would now be “scaled up to an industrial scale for the first time”.
Electrolysis with 100 megawatts planned in Lingen
According to RWE, the Lingen site plays a key role in the group's hydrogen strategy: As part of the “GET H2” project, the company plans to build a 2024-megawatt electrolysis plant there by 100, which will produce green hydrogen using offshore wind power from the North Sea will generate (we reported). The capacity is to be expanded to 2026 megawatts by 300 and to two gigawatts by 2030.
According to RWE, with GET H2 the companies want to create “the critical mass” that is necessary “to initiate the development of a supra-regional European hydrogen infrastructure and to develop a strong European hydrogen market”. RWE is active in over 30 hydrogen projects.
In March 2020, BP Europa SE, Evonik Industries AG, the transmission system operators Nowega GmbH and OGE GmbH as well as RWE Generation SE signed a declaration of intent for the development of a hydrogen network from Lingen to Gelsenkirchen in the joint initiative “GET H2 Nukleus”. With a length of around 130 kilometers, it is intended to connect producers of green hydrogen with industrial customers in Lower Saxony and North Rhine-Westphalia. At the time, there was talk of the electrolyser being put into operation by the end of 2022.
Gas power plants with two gigawatts
RWE announced in November that it would add at least two gigawatts of gas power plant capacity. RWE is developing a roadmap for existing plants to convert them to green. The Emsland gas and steam (CCGT) natural gas power plant consists of several blocks to generate electricity for medium and peak loads.
The plants are located near the RWE Lingen nuclear power plant, which has been closed since 1977 and has been dismantled since 2015, and north of the still existing Emsland nuclear power plant, which will be taken off the grid at the end of 2022. According to information, RWE Nuclear GmbH, founded in 2018, had already awarded contracts for the dismantling at the end of November. According to current status, the completion of the work is expected to be in the “mid/late 2030s”.
Class schedule
This is what it could one day look like at the site of the hydrogen power plant in Lingen. © RWE
