Kawas power plant. Courtesy: NTPC

GE and Indian power company NTPC have agreed to evaluate the demonstration of hydrogen blending using GE’s 9E gas turbines.

NTPC’s Kawas combined-cycle plant in Gujarat is powered by four GE turbines. The 645MW plant would be the site of the hydrogen blending research.

GE says its E-Class gas turbine portfolio has the capability to operate on blends of natural gas and hydrogen, up to 100% hydrogen. However, the company says for fuels with over 5% hydrogen by volume, gas turbine accessories may need to be modified.

Through this agreement GE will evaluate possible modifications to its gas turbines required for blending of H2 with natural gas.

Thereafter, GE says a pilot project for 5% hydrogen blending could be implemented at the Kawas plant. NTPC would provide the hydrogen required for the project.

The MOU signed by GE and NTPC is the first of its kind in India. But in total, GE has more than 100 gas turbines supporting power generation decarbonization with hydrogen and associated fuels around the world.

Recently, along with the New York Power Authority (NYPA) and the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), GE released the results of a hydrogen blending test at NYPA’s Brentwood Small Clean Power Plant on Long Island.

The demonstration used blends of 5%-44% hydrogen to identify and document any resulting impacts on GE’s LM-6000 combustion turbine engine and plant operations.

Broadly, the results found that following expected trends, carbon emissions decreased as the amount of hydrogen increased.

“India’s power landscape is strengthened by the emerging technologies that are at various stages of development and industrial competitiveness. Hydrogen has a significant potential to play a complementary role along with other low-to-zero carbon fuels in generating electricity at scale,” said Deepesh Nanda, CEO, GE Gas Power South Asia.