Leaders in the power generation industry hail gas turbines as the turbomachinery of excellence. In fact, the use of natural gas has been shown to reduce CO2 emissions by 20%. This breakthrough has helped refineries respond to global decarbonization objectives to reduce atmospheric emissions. Additionally, the use of hydrogen in gas-fueled turbines has proven to be a promising solution to reduce CO2 emissions even more.
However, switching to hydrogen-natural gas fuel blends comes with some drawbacks, due to differences in heating efficiency between hydrogen and natural gas. However, the CO2 intensity reductions with an increase of hydrogen are constrained by the size of the existing facilities. Finally, hydrogen in the gas turbine fuel gas lowers the exhaust temperature, which could impact the performance of the combined cycle systems.
This study shows how leading gas turbine manufacturers have significantly curbed CO2 emissions by integrating hydrogen into the fuel gas mixture.