A Comparative Feasibility Study of the Use of Hydrogen Produced from Surplus Wind Power for a Gas Turbine Combined Cycle Power Plant

Min-Jung Pyo,Tong-Seop Kim,Seong-Won Moon

doi:10.3390/en14248342

Abstract

Because of the increasing challenges raised by climate change, power generation from renewable energy sources is steadily increasing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, especially CO2. However, this has escalated concerns about the instability of the power grid and surplus power generated because of the intermittent power output of renewable energy. To resolve these issues, this study investigates two technical options that integrate a power-to-gas (PtG) process using surplus wind power and the gas turbine combined cycle (GTCC). In the first option, hydrogen produced using a power-to-hydrogen (PtH) process is directly used as fuel for the GTCC. In the second, hydrogen from the PtH process is converted into synthetic natural gas by capturing carbon dioxide from the GTCC exhaust, which is used as fuel for the GTCC. An annual operational analysis of a 420-MW-class GTCC was conducted, which shows that the CO2 emissions of the GTCC-PtH and GTCC-PtM plants could be reduced by 95.5% and 89.7%, respectively, in comparison to a conventional GTCC plant. An economic analysis was performed to evaluate the economic feasibility of the two plants using the projected cost data for the year 2030, which showed that the GTCC-PtH would be a more viable option.

Highlights

Driven by the increased worldwide attention to the challenges raised by climate change, greenhouse gas mitigation has become an important task in all industrial fields.Efforts are being made to reduce the amount of power generated from conventional power generation systems and to increase the power generation ratio of renewable energy to mitigate CO2 emissions [1]
An economic analysis was performed to evaluate the economic feasibility of the two plants using the projected cost data for the year 2030, which showed that the gas turbine combined cycle (GTCC)-PtH would be a more viable option
As a first step of our analysis, we investigated the fundamental impact of increasing the hydrogen mixing ratio in the fuel on the performance and emissions characteristics of Cases

Summary

Introduction

Driven by the increased worldwide attention to the challenges raised by climate change, greenhouse gas mitigation has become an important task in all industrial fields.Efforts are being made to reduce the amount of power generated from conventional power generation systems and to increase the power generation ratio of renewable energy to mitigate CO2 emissions [1]. Unlike conventional methods that use fossil fuels, renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power do not emit CO2 , so they can significantly contribute to the resolution of climate change challenges [2,3]. By 2023–25, the annual increase in the global offshore wind power generation is forecast to be double the levels in 2020, and the annual growth of solar power generation is projected to reach 130–165 GW [4]. If this trend is maintained, the ratio of solar power and wind power generation is expected to outweigh those of natural gas (NG) power generation by 2023 and coal thermal power generation by 2024 [4]. While conventional fossil fuel power plants can supply stable power to the electric grid, renewable energy suffers from the disadvantage of being intermittent

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