Iran's engineering and energy giant, the Mapna Group, is manufacturing hydrogen-fueled gas turbines, which consume less gas to generate electricity and instead of hazardous emissions discharge water, the managing director said.
“We take hydrogen, which is a clean fuel, from renewable power plants, and use it in these types of turbines, which replace traditional turbines and increase installed capacity of any power plant by 70 megawatts,” Abbas Aliabadi was quoted as saying by Bargh News website.
A gas turbine is the engine at the heart of a power plant that produces electric current. A gas turbine is a combustion engine that can convert natural gas or other liquid fuels to mechanical energy. This energy then drives a generator that produces electrical energy.
Thermal power plants, which generate 80% of electricity in Iran, are seen as a major source of air pollution due to emission of greenhouse gasses. Moreover, if there are problems with natural gas supplies to gas-powered power plants there will be power outages.
While the effort to reduce carbon emissions from traditional power generation assets is driving the increase in renewable power production from renewables, hydrogen-fueled gas turbines could also play a role.
Hydrogen, reacting with oxygen, is a very energetic, non-polluting fuel. Surplus renewable electrical energy from solar and wind could be used for electrolysis of water to produce hydrogen to power gas turbine power plants.
“We can replace up to 60% of the methane used in gas turbines with hydrogen,” Aliabadi said.
Currently, the efficiency of single-cycle power plants in Iran is 33% and combined- cycle plants 49%.
The new turbines can increase the efficiency of single-cycle plants by 40% and combined-cycle plants by 60%, he added, noting that the first hydrogen-fueled gas turbine will be installed in a power plant in Tehran in spring.
Mapna is a group of companies involved in the development and execution of thermal and renewable power plants, oil & gas, railway transport and other industrial projects.
It has been manufacturing and installing steam turbines to change single-cycle into eco-friendly combined ones in the past years.
So far, the company has built combined-cycle plants with a capacity to generate 20,000 MW of power.
The company is the largest manufacturer of power plant equipment in the Middle East and West Asia. It is a leader in power plant expansion and has projects in Iraq, Syria, Pakistan, Oman and Indonesia.
