Drew Robb

The Baker Hughes Annual Meeting at the end of January 2023 gave voice to oil and gas executives calling for a reevaluation of decarbonization policies they say may be inadvertently worsening emissions while pushing consumer energy bills upwards.

Caption: Decarbonization isn't as black and white as many world governments have made it seem. Credit: Adobe Stock.

Sheikh Khalid Bin Khalifa Al-Thani, CEO of Qatargas, explained that coal consumption reached an all-time high in 2022. Why? A general shortage of oil and gas was in evidence even before the Russia-Ukraine war. That crisis only heightened the problem, especially in Europe. The Europeans gobbled up any available LNG supplies at top dollar. That left a shortfall in many other areas, and coal became the solution.

“The energy crisis in 2022 highlighted the fragility of global energy markets,” said Al-Thani. “We must balance climate and emissions reduction policy with energy security.”

He believes that while the role of renewables within the energy mix will increase, it is many years before any energy transition can realistically take place.

“Substituting natural gas for coal is the key as we cannot decarbonize immediately,” he said. “Natural gas is a necessary complement to renewables for a robust energy supply and as support for climate mitigation. Natural gas is reliable, affordable, available, and has a low carbon footprint compared to coal. This makes it a destination fuel, not a transition fuel.”

Standing in the way is a policy and financing puzzle that makes it difficult and sometimes impossible to receive investment for natural gas projects. Several speakers at the event laid out how funding for large-scale natural gas and LNG projects is often thwarted as the investment field has been told that natural gas won’t be around by 2030. This idea comes from policy makers who set decarbonization targets without regard to the realities of the situation. When disruption comes, short-term policies are rapidly adjusted to accommodate a sudden switch to LNG, as in Europe in 2022. But long-term work to develop new oil and gas fields and build the infrastructure to support them is in neglect and has been for many years.

Lorenzo Simonelli of Baker Hughes laid out the hard truths of the energy transition.

Accordingly, Qatargas plans to boost gas production significantly over the next decade. Al-Thani said the company would do so while reducing its carbon footprint. It has already cut greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 12% compared to 2013 and CO2 emissions by 70% via injection and reduction of flaring. Methane emissions, he said, are already less than 1% of the company’s GHG profile.

Nasir Al-Naimi, Executive Vice President Upstream of Saudi Aramco (the largest oil and gas producer in the world), called for a return to energy realism.

“The impractical reality that oil and gas must be replaced has fueled chronic underinvestment, down by more than half from 2014 to 2021,” he said. “We must shatter the misleading narrative that oil and gas can be easily and quickly replaced.”

He laid out the statistics: Fossil fuels supplied 82% of the world’s energy needs in 2021 compared to 7% for renewables. The energy transition, he stressed, will happen at different speeds in different regions as they are at varying stages of development and industrialization. With three-quarters of a billion people still without electricity, the priority in these places is to get power by whatever means necessary.

“Each country has its own unique situation, so we must develop more realistic plays for affordable, reliable, and sustainable energy,” Al-Naimi said.

Saudi Aramco plans to boost production from its current level of around 12 million barrels of oil per day (boe/day) to 13 boe/day by 2027 and increase gas production by 50% by the end of the decade. In parallel, the company is investing heavily in carbon capture, renewables, and hydrogen.

“We must convince the world that oil and gas will play a prominent role in our energy future,” said Al-Naimi.

“We must shatter the misleading narrative that oil and gas can be easily and quickly replaced,” said Nasir Al-Naimi, Saudi Aramco.

Lorenzo Simonelli, Chairman and CEO of Baker Hughes laid out the energy “trilemma”—how to balance sustainability with affordability and security.

“There is no future without hydrocarbons, just as there is no one climate savior,” said Simonelli. “Instead of focusing on the fuel source, we need to focus on emissions as reliance on hydrocarbons won’t disappear.”

He announced that the annual meeting was attended by more than 1,600 people, with more than 50% attending for the first time. Faced with surging energy bills for consumers and industry across the globe, he laid out three key points:

1) The need to accelerate the development and adoption of technologies to meet net-zero targets. On the turbomachinery side, that means such things as compressors and valves that don’t leak methane and other gases.

2) There is no future without hydrocarbons and there is no one climate savior.

3) There is no path to net zero without partnerships.

According to Baker Hughes surveys of oil and gas users, 57% said they are continuing with commitments to natural gas and LNG. “LNG and natural gas are not transition fuels, they are destination fuels that play a critical role in abundant, secure, and affordable energy,” said Simonelli.

Panelists explained the problems with current energy and decarbonization policies.

The harsh realities of global energy were driven home by a series of speakers from around the world. Nurul Ichwan, Deputy Minister for Investment Promotion for Indonesia, explained that most energy in Indonesia comes from coal. He dismissed the idea that tens of GW of coal generation can be transitioned to renewables overnight. His country’s plan is to transition gradually from coal to natural gas while adding more wind and solar.

He commented that some countries in the region are promoting their own environmental credentials by reducing coal mining in their own countries while ordering more coal from Indonesia on multi-decade contracts.

“We want help in exploring and exploiting our own natural gas resources to aid in the transition from coal,” said Ichwan.

Farid Al Awlaqi, Executive Director of Generation for TAQA of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) said his nation has a different approach. It has plenty of solar and baseload nuclear but needs a lot more natural gas to meet swings in demand. “We are removing coal slowly out of the system and replacing with gas,” he said. “Our grids are not ready to manage intermittency.”

Helima Croft, Global Head of Commodity Strategy at RBC Capital Markets, said energy security is back as an energy priority. She is deeply concerned about energy supply over the next year, and said nations needed a diversity of sources. She added that Europe got lucky this year due to a milder winter. She complained about policy makers making it so difficult to fund oil and gas projects.

“We need to avoid underinvestment in oil and gas,” said Croft. “A stable supply of hydrocarbons is vital.”

Kazutomo Irie, President of the Asia-Pacific Energy Research Centre, went a stage further. He noted that emerging and developing nations place more importance on the security and affordability of energy supply than they do on decarbonization.

“We need natural gas to carry out coal-to-gas switching while building up renewables,” said Irie.

Octavio Simoes, CEO, Tellurian, said that while the supply of energy from renewable sources will grow massively in the coming years, it is still a long way from replacing fossil fuels. According to International Energy Agency estimates, the world will need at least 20% more gas and 40% more oil by 2050.

“No energy source has gone down in last 200 years except whale oil,” said Simoes. “The EU still gets 81% of its energy from fossil fuels, so replacing it in ten years is a fool’s errand.”

Yet the environmental lobby and the media are constantly vilifying non-renewable fuel sources. Adding to the problem is a big rise in the cost of the materials used in renewable energy.

“We are on the wrong path to decarbonization as we need affordable energy without volatility,” said Simoes. “We have written the first few and last few chapters on the energy transition and forgotten about the rest of the book. There is a big gap between vision and reality that is wide and getting wider.”

Yet investment in oil and gas in certain countries and political sectors is tabu, he added. The EU, for example, resists investment in gas but is spending far more on decarbonization and not getting there.

“Current energy transition Ideas are not executable,” said Simoes.

Onursal Soyer, Deputy Chief Executive Officer, Lambert Energy Advisory, described how Russian sanctions led the EU to buy up all available LNG at inflated prices to get through the winter and keep the wheels of industry running. As a result, a great many countries were denied LNG. That caused them to turn to coal.

“There was a record level of coal burned worldwide in 2022,” said Soyer. “Coal demand is not going away so replacing it with natural gas should be applauded.”

Hardline decarbonization policies, he added, are a major impediment to oil and gas investment. “This is causing coal to be used more and gas to be penalized, which is only making the situation worse,” said Soyer. 

To further worsen a difficult global energy situation, oil and gas consumption this year will be highest ever and 2023 will be, too. But even with prices high, major oil and gas companies are not investing due to policy hurdles. This investment is vitally needed to maintain current supply and create the oil and gas resources needed to take the world through the next 30 years.

It isn’t just oil and gas that faces shortages and high prices. Other materials are in a real supply crunch, said Kathleen Kelley, Founder and CEO, Queen Anne’s Gate Capital.

To meet the decarbonization and renewable energy targets that have been set, nickel production worldwide will have to go from 100,000 tons to 3 million tons a year. That is unfeasible. It is the same story with rare earths. Some point to the fact that Sweden has found new deposits of rare earths that can be used in batteries and other renewable energy. But those mines will take 10 to 15 years to come online.

“There was a record level of coal burned worldwide in 2022,” said Onursal Soyer, Lambert Energy Advisory.

“Investors are not allocating money to mining due to the industry’s poor performance on environmental, social and governance (ESG) metrics,” said Kelley. “We can’t possibly get to any climate goals based on the timescale of mining alone.”

Jessica Roberts, Head of Forecasting at Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, gave further specifics. Lithium batteries provided 700 kWH of power in 2022. By 2035, they are supposed to provide 5.5 TWH. That requires 300 new mines. It takes five to 25 years to open a new mine.

“We went from 100,000 tons of lithium a few years ago to a million tons last year and will need at least 2 million within a few years,” said Roberts.

Articles

Energy industry executives flip the script on unrealistic decarbonization goals. 

The Decarbonization Pushback Has Begun

Q: Tell us about your latest turbomachinery developments.

The NovaLT16 combustion system can now operate with fuel gas compositions up to high percentages of hydrogen while delivering 15ppm NOx when operating with natural gas. The machine is undergoing testing of a new combustor with 100% hydrogen capability.

The High-Pressure Ratio Compressors (HPRC) we developed a few years ago are now being used at higher speeds for hydrogen applications. As hydrogen has a low molecular weight, its compression must be fast and multi-stage. The HPRC can provide up to 9-10 stages in a single casing and speeds of 450 M/sec speed with a compressor ratio up to 2.2-2.3 (compared to about 1.5 for a traditional compressor). There is also an H2PRC in develop-ment that can spin at 650 m/sec and deliver pressure ratios in excess of three.

Q: What are you doing to increase compressor efficiency and reduce leakage?

On the LNG side, Baker Hughes just completed a new project in Qatar to increase efficiency of LNG compressors by 5% compared to those sent there originally in 2003, while reducing their footprint by 15%. Thermoplastic materials were used to reduce compressor leakage.

Baker Hughes has also been working with Dry Gas Seal (DGS) and other suppliers on component reliability. To reduce methane leakage, small compression packages capture any lost gas and refeed it back to the compressor, or onto a gas turbine for power generation.

The Baker Hughes integrated compressor line with magnetic bearings and an electric motor is being promoted as a solution for pipelines, storage, and other equipment to eliminate leakage. This technology eliminates venting and the need for DGS on compressors.

Q: Any further developments you can tell us about?

We are standardizing electric motor-driven packages leveraging our portfolio, which includes Brush and Lufkin product lines, to reduce footprints by 15%-20% for offshore applications in Saudi Arabia and Brazil. For carbon capture, we are implementing an integrally geared, multi-shaft, intercooled machine that can reach more than 200 bar.

We are investing in compressed air energy storage to make the technology more cost competitive.

Leonardo Baldassarre—Executive General Manager of Engineering, Platform Leader for Compressors, Pumps, and Expanders at Baker Hughes’ Industrial and Energy Technology (IET) business—talks about the company's latest developments and more.  

A Q&A: The Baker Hughes Turbomachinery Perspective 

PowerGen International, held Feb. 21-23, returned to Orlando, Florida, for 2023. The show appears to be regaining its audience again after a long absence due to the pandemic.

Clarion’s Vice President of Content David Wagman kicked things off by emphasizing the theme of the conference: Destination 2050—reaching net zero carbon emissions by 2050 via industry innovation.

Entrance to PowerGen 2023 at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Florida. Courtesy of Turbomachinery International.

Jan Aspuru, the COO of Orlando Utilities Commission, discussed its microgrid lab and the development of a hydrogen energy storage system. He also spoke on the company’s Osceola generating station, which utilizes GE gas turbines. He noted how intermittent solar is a renewable source for the state of Florida, and that natural gas is seen as a more persistent option. Traditional power needs to work in tandem with newer solutions to retain grid reliability.

Alex Glenn, CEO of Duke Energy Florida and Midwest, detailed different areas that impact the plans to reach net zero. These include local and federal government partnerships, maintaining equipment performance, addressing concerns of stakeholders, and supply chain constraints.

“Coal will represent less than 5% of power generation in 2030,” he said. “A diverse generation mix is key to customers.”

An early presentation provided an overview of direct air capture (DAC) technology and the status of developments and deployments to date. It included a discussion on potential applications for coupling DAC technology with existing power assets to lower the carbon footprint.

Eric Ping, Vice President, Technology at Global Thermostat, explained his company’s DAC system. Ambient air comes in from the sides and is heated to 200°F. Then the CO

 is extracted at a rate of 400 ppm. It uses amine chemistry in solid form instead of the usual solvent form.

“Direct contact steam stripping delivers latent heat into the system,” said Ping. “Multibed adsorption removes significant plant capital expense.”

Eric Ping of Global Thermostat discussed direct air capture of carbon dioxide. Courtesy of Turbomachinery International.

He added that front-end engineering design (FEED) studies are ongoing for sites in Texas, Illinois, and Alabama to identify risks, establish a plan of execution, and develop a budget before projects are approved for funding.

Kevin Lauzze, Vice President & Project Director at Sargent & Lundy, added that a ring-shaped DAC module with 10 segments was the best design. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) was used to confirm the viability of that size and design and to ensure there were no fatal flaws in the air flow. A fan 15 feet in diameter turned out to be optimal. When larger fans were modeled, the structural design aspects scaled poorly. Thus, little or no economies of scale were realized in process equipment sizing.

DTE Energy’s Dearborn Central Energy Plant (CEP) generates electricity and distributes chilled water, hot water, and steam to buildings at the Ford Dearborn Research and Engineering Campus (REC). The CEP consists of a combined heat and power (CHP) plant and a chilled/hot water plant for combined power and steam generation. The energy produced from the CHP is sent to DTE Electric. Steam, hot water, and chilled water are sent to the REC. The CHP plant can generate 34 MW and produce up to 225 kilo-pounds per hour (KPPH) of 200 PSIG saturated steam. It consists of two 14.5 MW Solar Titan 130 gas turbines, a 5 MW condensing steam turbine from Siemens Energy, and two Rentech Heat Recovery Steam Generators (HRSGs) (370,000 lb/hr).

DTE recently installed a hybrid analytics solution that combines machine learning and advanced pattern recognition (APR) software with a digital twin to monitor and improve the performance and reliability of the plant.

Kevin Siess, Facility Manager at DTE Energy, said the CEP opened on the first day of 2020. COVID-19-inspired lockdowns provided the impetus to innovate in plant monitoring.

“A single person looks after the entire 34 MW, 87,000 square foot facility 76% of the time,” said Siess.

Teething troubles were inevitable. The first year saw nine unit trips, but that fell to five in year two and two in year three. The number of hours also dropped drastically—from 50 hours of unplanned downtime in the first year to four hours in the third year. Siess said 12,000 data points are analyzed from front-end plant controls, sensors in most components and systems, computerized maintenance management systems (CMMS), and MapX software for advanced pattern management (APM) and modeling.

Kevin Siess of DTE Energy showcased a new CHP plant that utilizes digital twin technology to operate the plant with a single person on site. Courtesy of Turbomachinery International.

“Our plant operators are also our maintenance staff who can monitor the plant and overall control systems while they are doing their rounds,” said Siess.

Coal-to-gas conversions were covered in several sessions during the show. While some dream of transitioning to renewables in a matter of a few years, reality is beginning to set in. By moving coal resources to natural gas, major emissions reductions can be achieved without causing grid disruption or causing rolling blackouts as has been the case in California of late.

Jonas Hackmann, President of Fossil Power Systems, talked about the many technical and project execution challenges to be considered when planning to convert a tangential fired furnace from coal to natural gas. He gave a rundown of combustion air system modifications, fuel system designs, boiler modeling, and emissions reductions, as well as factors affecting equipment and retrofit cost, operation, maintenance, and performance. He made the point that coal-to-gas conversions can bring about emissions reductions of about 50% in CO

Another session noted strong interest in 100% hydrogen firing or co-firing large utility-class coal, oil, and natural gas boilers to achieve decarbonization goals. While no singular template exists for all retrofits, the session laid out key fac-tors and potential modifications across a range of units, including both wall-fired and tangential fired boilers. What surprised some attendees was the fact that running hydrogen in boilers is nothing new.

“We have had a great many package boilers running nothing but hydrogen for decades,” said Denis Osowski, Development Director, Engineering Technology at Babcock & Wilcox.

He questioned whether the use of hydrogen in boilers made sound economic sense most of the time for the production of power and steam. In situations where there is a hydrogen hub operating and a coal boiler is sitting nearby, it may make sense. But overall, he said hydrogen is a super expensive fuel and the use of it may require expensive system and equipment modifications. It is technically feasible but often won’t make economic sense.

Osowski showed a chart of gaseous fuels and how impurities often present in hydrogen in very small amounts can make a huge difference in the fuel and how the gas moves through the pipes. Further problems mentioned include the need for bigger pipes and valves, safety features to prevent leakage and cope with hydrogen’s wider explosive limit, the need for more fuel nozzles to spread the flame better and improve combustion efficiency, and modifications to igniter systems and flame scanners.

Rethinking data center power was the topic of a session toward the end of the program. Todd Forrest, Senior Project Development Engineer at HDR, briefed that there are already more than 4 GW of data centers in the U.S. in primary and secondary markets, and the market is experiencing 11% year-over-year growth. He doesn’t anticipate that growth rate slowing down any time soon.

The typical 100 MW data center includes a dedicated substation, often has two independent utility feeds for redundancy, and contains a lot of equipment to shift voltages down before feeding current to the equipment.Most of the time, these facilities use diesel generators for backup power.

But more data centers are looking at CHP to enable them to be fully in control of power supply, or to supplement grid power. In some cases, the CHP facility harnesses excess heat to create chilled water for data center consumption, sells excess power back to the grid, and has the option of using that power to keep the data center running in the event of a natural disaster or grid failure.

Sessions at PowerGen International 2023 were generally well attended. Courtesy of Turbomachinery International.

Carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) is an important technology for decarbonization goals. A panel of experts focused on point source carbon capture, geological storage, pipeline transportation, monitoring, costs, and other relevant areas. Richard Esposito of Southern Company emphasized the importance of bringing projects in on time and reviewed the basics of CCUS. Jose Figueroa of the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) spoke on the need for an integrated carbon management approach and the importance of developing advanced technology quickly.

Mark McKoy, also of NETL, went over pipeline infrastructure development projections and the expansion of the industry.

“The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is working to implement further initiatives for infrastructure changes. This includes providing technical assistance and information for undertaking CCUS projects and arranging co-founding support for carbon storage facility pilot projects,” said McKoy.

Bob Slettehaugh of Kiewit spoke about the costs of CCUS as an emerging market and the importance of strong partnerships for all parties involved in its development.

Sanjay Hingorani, Chief Engineer and Director, Customer Technical Support at Mitsubishi Power Aero, covered aeroderivative gas turbine upgrades. Specifically, for the fleet of FT8 and FT4000 series gas turbines. The presentation covered several areas where aeroderivative on-demand power technology is improving through product upgrades. Examples were FT8 wet compression, FT4000 performance improvements, digital data solutions and remote monitoring.

“Existing engines can implement wet-compression technology, i.e., water injection, which leads to a 12% power increase on an FT8 gas turbine,” he said.

He highlighted the capability of the company’s aeroderivative units to blend hydrogen and natural gas. Hingorani also addressed the topic of hydrogen as a gas turbine fuel option, and Mitsubishi Power Aero’s efforts in preparing for expected technology changes.

Charlie Green from IHI and Jeffrey Goldmeer from GE Gas Power presented on the use of ammonia as a zero-carbon fuel source for gas turbines. A joint study focused on comparing ammonia to hydrogen and/or ammonia converted to hydrogen. The goal of the study was to find an economic and technical solution for reducing global CO

 emissions in coun-tries with net import resource supply chain complications, such as Japan. The advantages and challenges of using ammonia as a fuel source were discussed from technical and economic perspectives.

“Ammonia has an advantage over hydrogen as a net-zero carbon fuel solution due to its capability to persist over long distances with less effort,” according to Green.

Goldmeer reviewed the cost analysis of the study, which included transportation over land, conversion, liquefaction, storage, sea transport, port storage, and reconversion of the ammonia. Three potential pathways were considered: all ammonia, all hydrogen, or converting back to hydrogen for end use. Ammonia was found to have a lower landed cost (cost of shipping) compared to hydrogen. Transportation was noted as the largest cost driver due to fuel prices.

“Liquified natural gas in combination with carbon capture and storage was found to be competitive in terms of carbon reduction due to infrastructure compatibility,” reported Goldmeer.

The next PowerGen International event will take place in New Orleans Jan. 23-25, 2024. Read more of our PowerGen 2023 coverage at turbomachinerymag.com. 

The dominant themes at the show included hydrogen, the evolution of power plant, and CHP. 

PowerGen 2023 Show Report

The Western Turbine Users Inc. (WTUI) conference is taking place this week in San Diego, California. It traditionally kicks off with a review of the past year’s gas turbine sales and predictions for the coming year. Delivered by Mark Axford of Axford Turbine Consultants and Tony Brough of Dora Partners, the big news is that new gas turbine orders worldwide were up 47% in terms of MW capacity in 2022 compared to 2021.

This increase is particularly welcome after some difficult years. At last year’s show, they reported that new gas turbine orders (in MW) were down 12% in 2021 and that this was part of a longer term downward trend: The annual GT market was sized about 60 GW a decade ago and had dropped into the 30 GW to 40 GW range. It was heartening to see it return to around 50 GW for 2022 and achieve its highest level in more than six years. That number was considerably more than Axford predicted at last year’s WTUI event. He forecast that MW orders would be down overall in 2022.

Unit orders, though, told a different story. They had been up slightly in 2021 compared to the previous year but were slightly down in 2022. Overall, unit orders worldwide have been flat for years, just above 400 per year.

Brough commented that the 2022 surge in MW orders was down mainly to an increase in sales of large gas turbines. He added that orders for these machines tend to be cyclic so not to necessarily expect another jump in orders in 2023 for large-frame machines.

The presentation always ends with a look to the future. Axford expects overall worldwide GT orders to drop in 2023, perhaps down as low as 40 GW. He cautioned, however, that things can change rapidly. Who would have predicted that oil would surge again above $100 a barrel (as it did last summer), that inflation would continue above 6% per year, or that the war in Ukraine would pass the year mark? Such events cause major market disruptions and tend to throw off forecasts. Such unpredictability in the coming months could raise or lower the prospects for GT orders.

Get ready for more WTUI news in the coming days.

Gas Turbine orders skyrocket, up 47% for MW capacity in the last year compared to 2021.

WTUI News: Western Turbine Conference Reports Surge in GT Orders 

PowerGen International, held Feb. 21-23, returned to Orlando, FL, for 2023. The show appears to be regaining its audience again after a long absence due to the pandemic.

Keynote Jan Aspuru, the COO of Orlando Utilities Commission, discussed its microgrid lab and the development of a hydrogen energy storage system, while Alex Glenn, CEO of Duke Energy Florida and Midwest, detailed different areas that impact the plans to reach net zero, including local and federal government partnerships, maintaining equipment performance, and more.

Eric Ping, Vice President, Technology at Global Thermostat, explained his company’s DAC system. Air is processed at ambient conditions and then steam stripped at around 200°F. Then the CO2 is extracted at a rate of 400 ppm. It uses amine chemistry in solid form instead of the usual solvent form.

Caption: Kevin Siess of DTE Energy showcased a new CHP plant that utilizes digital twin technology to operate the plant with a single person on site. Courtesy of Turbomachinery International.

DTE Energy’s Dearborn Central Energy Plant (CEP) generates electricity and distributes chilled water, hot water, and steam to buildings at the Ford Dearborn Research and Engineering Campus (REC). The CEP consists of a combined heat and power (CHP) plant and a chilled/hot water plant for combined power and steam generation. The energy produced from the CHP is sent to DTE Electric. Steam, hot water, and chilled water are sent to the REC. The CHP plant can generate 34 MW and produce up to 225 kilopounds per hour (KPPH) of 200 PSIG saturated steam. It consists of two 14.5 MW Solar Titan 130 gas turbines, a 5 MW condensing steam turbine from Siemens Energy, and two Rentech Heat Recovery Steam Generators (HRSGs) (370,000 lb/hr).

“A single person looks after the entire 34 MW, 87,000-square-foot facility 76% of the time,” said Siess.

Caption: Sessions at PowerGen International 2023 were generally well attended. Courtesy of Turbomachinery International.

Jonas Hackmann, President of Fossil Power Systems, talked about the many technical and project execution challenges to be considered when planning to convert a tangential fired furnace from coal to natural gas.

Another session noted strong interest in 100% hydrogen firing or co-firing large utility-class coal, oil, and natural gas boilers to achieve decarbonization goals. What surprised some attendees was the fact that running hydrogen in boilers is nothing new.

He questioned, however, whether the use of hydrogen in boilers made sound economic sense most of the time to produce power and steam. In situations where there is a hydrogen hub operating and a coal boiler is sitting nearby, it may make sense. But overall, he said hydrogen is a super-expensive fuel and the use of it may require expensive system and equipment modifications.

Rethinking data center power was the topic of a session toward the end of the program. Todd Forrest

Senior Project Development Engineer at HDR, briefed the crowd that there are already more than 4 GW of data centers in the U.S. in primary and secondary markets, and the market is experiencing 11% year-over-year growth. He doesn’t anticipate that growth rate slowing down any time soon.

The full show report is available in the March/April print issue of 

Dominant themes at the show included hydrogen, the evolution of power plant, and CHP. 

PowerGen 2023 Showcases Innovation 

Sheikh Khalid Bin Khalifa Al-Thani, CEO of Qatargas, explained that coal consumption reached an all-time high in 2022. Why? A general shortage of oil & gas was in evidence even before the Russia-Ukraine war. That crisis only heightened the problem, especially in Europe. The Europeans gobbled up any available LNG supplies at top dollar. That left a shortfall in many other areas, and coal became the solution.

Standing in the way is a policy and financing puzzle that makes it difficult and sometimes impossible to receive investment for natural gas projects. Several speakers at the event laid out how funding for large-scale natural gas and LNG projects is often thwarted as the investment field has been told that natural gas won’t be around by 2030. This idea comes from policy makers who set decarbonization targets without regard to the realities of the situation. When disruption comes, short-term policies are rapidly adjusted to accommodate a sudden switch to LNG, as in Europe in 2022. But long-term work to develop new oil and gas fields and build the infrastructure to support them is in neglect – and has been for many years.

“We must shatter the misleading narrative that oil & gas can be easily and quickly replaced.” Nasir Al-Naimi,Executive Vice President Upstream of Saudi Aramco.

Nasir Al-Naimi, Executive Vice President Upstream of Saudi Aramco (the largest oil & gas producer in the world), called for a return to energy realism

“The impractical reality that oil and gas must be replaced has fueled chronic underinvestment, down by more than half from 2014 to 2021,” he said. “We must shatter the misleading narrative that oil & gas can be easily and quickly replaced.”

He laid out the statistics. Fossil fuels supplied 82% of the world’s energy needs in 2021 compared to 7% for renewables. The energy transition, he stressed, will happen at different speeds in different regions as they are at varying stages of development and industrialization. With three quarters of a billion people still being without electricity, the priority in these places it to get power by whatever means necessary.

“Each country has its own unique situation so we must develop more realistic plays for affordable, reliable, and sustainable energy.”

“We must convince the world that oil & gas will play a prominent role in our energy future,” said Al-Naimi.

Lorenzo Simonelli, Chairman and CEO of Baker Hughes, laid out the energy “trilemma” – the three parts of the dilemma are the balancing of sustainability with affordability and security.

“There is no future without hydrocarbons, just as there is no one climate savior,” said Simonelli. “Instead of focusing on the fuel source, we need to focus on emissions.

Energy industry executives flip the script on unrealistic decarbonization goals

Decarbonization Pushback

PowerGen 2022 featured a fascinating presentation by John Gülen of Bechtel Infrastructure & Power on the feasibility of hydrogen turbines. John is not what you would call a fan of the concept of powering very large gas turbines with hydrogen. He explained that it would be cost-prohibitive to run them on 100% hydrogen.


Gülen laid out what it would take to make the concept work at a more reasonable level of hydrogen consumption. He suggested that research and development was needed into an efficient turbine in the 200 MW range as the best chance of making hydrogen combustion a success (As shown in the figure, there is a big gap between those mid-size units and large heavy duty gas turbines). The proposed machine is detailed in a paper he gave along with Justin Zachary of Expertech Engineering at the proceedings of ASME Turbo Expo 2022 (GT2022-81807) entitled, “Feasibility of achieving 62% combined cycle efficiency with a 200 MW gas turbine”.


“The smaller the gas turbine, the better the chance of fully green electric power generation,” said Gülen. “We need smaller turbines to be able to burn meaningful amounts of hydrogen efficiently.”


He ruled out aeroderivatives due to their having a high pressure ratio, and too low an amount of waste heat to make them viable in combined cycle operation. He also ruled out large heavy frame machines, which have been receiving the lion’s share of investment by the major gas turbine OEMs over the last couple of decades. This trend appears to be continuing with hydrogen.


Gülen pointed out that they are not the best candidates if hydrogen-based combustion is to achieve efficient operation. The typical 50-Hz J+ Class gas turbine of around 575 MWe, for example, would burn nearly 40 tons per hour (t/h) of H2 based on the use of polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) technology in an electrolyzer consuming 55 kWh per kg of hydrogen. Such an electrolyzer would require about 2.2 GW of green power. To put this into perspective, consider that the amount of total curtailed wind energy in Germany hovers around 6 to 7,000 GWh, i.e., enough to sustain that one gas turbine for about 3,000 hours at full load.


In the 60-Hz range, the average J+ class turbines of about 420 MWe would burn nearly 30 t/h of hydrogen. This would require the supply of about 1.6 GW of green power. When you consider the amount of wind and solar energy needed to produce the hydrogen feedstock to operate these large machines, raw economics and energy efficiency factors render them infeasible options. Again, to put things into perspective, total wind curtailment in the U.S. in 2020 was 13,000 GWh, which is roughly enough to run only two of those units at full load for 4,000 hours.

Turbine inlet temperature (TIT) of smaller gas turbines need to be increased if they are to burn hydrogen efficiently. Courtesy of S.C. Gülen.


According to Gülen, a better approach if hydrogen-based gas turbine combustion is to ever gain traction would be to focus on a smaller model. A 200 MW gas turbine might burn only about 16 t/h of hydrogen or about 900 MW of green power. However, this requires investment. Such a machine would need to incorporate some of the features developed for J-class gas turbines that led to the achievement of combined cycle efficiencies exceeding 62% such as larger air flow and increasing the firing temperature.


His paper lays out the work required in a variety of areas such as the intake, compressor, combustor, turbine, and exhaust in order to create the ideal hydrogen-burning machine.


“Getting to 62% efficiency would make a big difference to the viability of a 200 MW turbine that could deliver meaningful hydrogen-fueled generation,” said Gülen.


Most 200 MW-range turbines are E-class, though a few are F-class. An upgraded F-class would be required for hydrogen generation to bring combined cycle efficiently beyond the 60% mark. A couple of existing models have some of the right characteristics, for example, the 100 MW model from Mitsubishi Power (H100).


Gülen’s ideal configuration for combined cycle hydrogen generation would be two-shaft with the compressor and three-stage high pressure (HP) turbine forming a self-balanced shaft. The low pressure (LP) turbine would have two stages. Using reasonable design assumptions, the combined cycle performance would be about 303.1 MW and 61.34% net LHV.


From a thermal cycle perspective, such a product is conceivable with a high-cycle pressure ratio and a J-class turbine inlet temperature. A two-shaft configuration is needed to achieve a mechanically feasible design. But high investment would beneeded in areas such as compressor and combustor design. OEMs are unlikely to make such an investment unless they can clearly see demand from the market. In Gülen’s opinion, such a product may only be viable in high fuel cost markets.


His conclusion, therefore, is that if hydrogen combustion has any future at all in combined cycle mode to produce consistent large quantities of power, a 200 MW gas turbine concept is a better approach. However, he doubts the likelihood of sufficient investment.


Note that, from an overall CO2 emissions reduction perspective, the end result is pretty much the same no matter how one goes about it. This is a direct function of available excess renewable energy to be devoted to green hydrogen production. However, using the manufactured hydrogen in smaller green generators that would be run to support renewable resources is a better strategy than burning it in one gigantic power plant that would be better suited to running at higher capacity factors.


“The best use of hydrogen in power generation would be to provide peaking or standby power with fully hydrogen-fueled small gas turbines,” said Gülen. ■

HOW FEASIBLE IS IT TO OPERATE GAS TURBINES ON HYDROGEN?

HYDROGEN TURBINES

Emerson is a global technology and software company headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri. It provides solutions across multiple markets and process industries, including power, oil and gas, and downstream hydrocarbons, among others. This includes technologies to manage, control, and optimize turbomachinery asset operation.

“Our portfolio includes automation & control software for turbomachinery operating in the power generation and process industries,” said Jim Nyenhuis, Manager of Performance Consulting for the Power Industry at Emerson. “More specifically, we provide turbomachinery control systems, supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA), condition monitoring, and safety systems complemented by operations management software for asset and operations performance, data management and digital twin simulation.”

In addition, the company offers digital solutions for predictive AI-driven maintenance, remote monitoring, automated operational decision-making, and cybersecurity services designed to identify vulnerabilities, close protection gaps, and secure process control systems before an attack threatens to impact operations. For functional safety (SIL), it offers SIL3-capable safety systems together with an in-house expert team for SIL implementation on turbomachinery applications. The SIL safety system is integrated with the Emerson control system.

Fleetwide, plantwide, and remote controls are available with the Emerson Ovation platform.

Nyenhuis noted several evolving trends associated with the transformation of the broader energy landscape to net zero and aggressive decarbonization. Reliance on renewables, for example, brings new challenges when working with intermittent power sources: That, in turn, requires greater asset flexibility and the necessity to closely monitor assets that operate differently than originally intended.

Workforce transitions, too, are exerting a significant impact on the industry: The accelerating loss of skilled technical workers due to Baby Boomer retirements, the mass resignation phenomenon coming out of the pandemic, and the influx of a digital native workforce generation. Combined, these factors bring to the forefront the need to address how organizations can operate and maintain equipment and facilities when faced with reduced staffing equipped with varying levels of hands-on experience.

Additionally, there is increasing interest in leveraging digitalization and data analytics taking root in an environment where many plants continue to operate with controls and automation systems of varying vintages from varying suppliers. This can impact both reliability and efficiency. It can be difficult to locate spare parts and personnel with the expertise to conduct the needed services for multiple outdated systems.

“We help customers implement digital strategies by taking small data-driven steps,” said Jim Nyenhuis, Emerson. “We do this by providing control applications, wireless solutions, condition monitoring, digital twin simulation and data analytics.”

The modern plant environment calls for several elements: Quickly recognizing and responding to changing operational conditions for improved plant performance and flexibility; improving load flexibility by increasing ramp rates; better unit cycling performance and consistency; more robust and stable minimum load operation; and a decrease in the number of forced outages by reducing equipment stress.

New tools are emerging to help personnel make sense of the massive amounts of data they now collect. These tools and algorithms monitor equipment as well as process efficiency and health. When paired with various machine learning techniques and AI-based diagnostic solutions, the resulting intelligence can be used to predict and better manage potential failure situations.


Accordingly, Emerson offers a unified automation and software platform known as Ovation that helps to eliminate complexity and risk by capturing and contextualizing process and operational data.

“Ovation automation technology enables secure, reliable power plant, and equipment operation,” said Nyenhuis. “Emerson’s five decades of power generation expertise is embedded within Ovation software and technologies to form a digital platform that optimizes plant and equipment performance while reducing operations and maintenance costs.”

A single platform provides full power plant control, optimization, digital twin simulation, and analysis of all generating assets including major equipment, individual units, or multi-plant fleets. The software is also designed to incorporate renewable and distributed energy sources into the energy mix. It extends beyond the bounds of traditional distributed control and data acquisition systems to include integrated vibration monitoring, generator excitation control, safety instrumented systems, scalable footprints for small or distributed applications, virtualization, and embedded simulation.

Specific to the turbomachinery sector, Ovation Machinery Health Monitor integrates machinery protection and condition monitoring into an Ovation control system. The module snaps into the existing I/O base to provide continuous online monitoring of vibration and other machinery health parameters with orbit, waveform, and spectrum analysis display capabilities. Instead of alarms being generated after damage has occurred, Ovation HMIs display alerts based on sensor peak and phase values as well as Emerson PeakVue readings for rolling element bearings. Connecting the module to Emerson’s AMS Machine Works application provides condition monitoring capabilities outside of the Ovation network. A defense-in-depth approach to cybersecurity is built into the platform.

The Ovation platform monitors vibration and other machinery health parameters.

“The stress placed on rotating equipment can introduce premature component wear and other thermal and mechanical-related issues,” said Nyenhuis. “Failure events can develop slowly and quickly escalate to failure with little to no warning, putting the safety of plant operations and staff at risk. Vibration and asset monitoring solutions identify developing faults well in advance of breakdowns.”

Such technology is also being implemented in fields such as hydrogen generation, carbon capture and storage (CCS), and energy storage. For example, Mitsubishi Power America’s Advanced Clean Energy Storage Hub uses renewable electricity to power electrolyzers to produce green hydrogen. The hydrogen is then stored in salt caverns and dispatched when required to the Intermountain Power Project (IPP Renewed) to generate electricity from hydrogen-fueled turbines. Emerson is providing an integrated Ovation control and safety platform to optimize the hub’s production efficiency and help ensure safe operations.


Remote, real-time access to operations is more critical than ever, especially with the increase of geographically dispersed and often unmanned assets. Emerson has made progress in the establishment of remote operations centers. Control software detects the onset of an abnormal condition and alerts the operator to take action to avert potential problems. Plant data can also be sent to a centralized monitoring and diagnostics (M&D) center for longer-term, strategic analysis across the entire fleet.

“Remote and mobile capabilities enable secure and efficient access to data from anywhere at any time,” said Nyenhuis. “This enables faster and more precise responses to critical issues, as well as the ability to proactively address maintenance issues, minimizing costs and improving safety.”

For compressor drive units, for example, progress has been made integrating the compressor and prime mover controls for easier operation and maintenance and to streamline cybersecurity protection. Such gains are enabled by many factors, including advancements in the speed and bandwidth of networking technologies.


Digital transformation is being embraced across the industry as organizations seek to boost operating efficiency, decrease downtime, and reduce costs. Advances in Internet of Things (IoT) and automation technologies are opening the door to greater levels of digitalization.

However, Nyenhuis cautions those engaged in digital transformation that while a game-changer, it can also be a disruptor. It is not only about technology.

“Organizations are increasingly factoring in not only process and technology, but also their culture—seeking buy-in from the people who will be interacting most with the technology,” he said. “This last element, commonly overlooked in the past, is essential for successful digital transformation.” 

OVATION AUTOMATION & CONTROL SOFTWARE FOR TURBOMACHINERY 

VENDOR SPOTLIGHT: EMERSON

Siemens Energy has expanded its Innovation Center in Orlando, Florida. As the company’s first global hub for innovation, it is dedicated to accelerating the development of products and solutions to drive the energy transition through collaboration, rapid prototyping, and testing.

Siemens Energy Innovation Center CTO Cliff Hatcher showcases new 3D printing techniques being applied to blades.

The company has spent more than $30 million over the last few years in building its research & development operations in Florida. Another $7 million during 2022 added an extra wing as well as equipment for the machine shop, further additive manufacturing (AM) machines, and more robotics to inspect and repair components for equipment like turbines capable of running on hydrogen. The expansion increases the space from 17,000 sq. ft. to 30,000 sq. ft.

“We operate with a start-up mentality, where ideas that used to take six months to test now take six weeks,” said Rich Voorberg, President, North America for Siemens Energy.


Turbomachinery International visited the center during its grand opening in October 2019. On our return in September of 2022, it was immediately clear that things had changed considerably. The company has substantially increased its manufacturing capability, increasing the volume of work in terms of man hours by around three times. A tour highlighted the fact that further space reorganization was ongoing to make room for yet more equipment.

“We have skills in-house that span mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, AI, welding, and a multitude of other disciplines,” said Voorberg. “We need all kinds of machinery to hand so we can develop prototypes rapidly and efficiently.”

Cliff Hatcher, CTO of the Innovation Center, led the tour. He said that the center was originally an experiment to see the effect of putting experts from multiple disciplines under one roof. Based on its success over the past three years, similar centers are being established in Berlin, Abu Dhabi, and China. In addition to new product and process developments, they will function as showrooms for what Siemens Energy is doing in the field of transformative technology.

“We wanted to be agile and have a footprint that could change as market needs changed,” said Hatcher. “We can work on one topic this week, and pivot immediately to another as required.”

AM represents a recent pivot. The center is working more extensively with AM to streamline the supply chain for 3D printed parts. It will help determine which parts should be made where based on quantity and complexity, as well as prototyping new parts to be printed and developing new techniques and processes. The company is also involved in the White House’s AM Forward initiative to help small businesses learn and adopt AM. This is just one facet of a shift from being a purely internal operation to using the center to engender creativity with customers and across the supply chain.

A customer site in South America, for example, had a legacy guide vane that was damaged during the disassembly process. The manufacturing plant no longer had the capability to make the part on an expedited schedule. After an exhaustive search for an existing part the service team ran out of options to meet the outage time schedule. They turned to Innovation Center Orlando to manufacture a new part that would meet the outage schedule of 15 days. The Innovation Center team 3D printed a replacement and shipped to their manufacturing facility in Charlotte to finish machining. In parallel, the center also machined a part from a block of steel on its 5-axis CNC machine. The parts arrived on time, costly damages were avoided, and the customer met its outage schedule.


During the tour, we previewed work being done to make the 3D printing of blades feasible. Previously, 3D printing was only really viable for smaller parts due to the process involved: a layer of metallic powder of about 40 microns is laid down and laser sintered then another layer and another. For larger parts subject to high stress and temperatures such as blades, the center is using Wire Arc Additive Manufacturing (WAAM). It lays down 20 mm layers of molten metal at a time. The process is being refined and requires a lot more finishing than traditional 3D printing.

Rich Voorberg said customers are keen to co-fund and co-create projects such as blade advances as well as in carbon capture, hydrogen, and other areas of the energy transition.

“Some customers are working with us to push turbine development to be able to run on 100% hydrogen,” he said. “The challenge is not so much in burning hydrogen but in establishing the entire hydrogen supply chain.”

Easier said than done. Hydrogen supply is extremely limited. Siemens Energy has developed electrolyzers and is working to scale up green hydrogen production. The recent infrastructure package enacted into law provides a $3 per kilo green hydrogen incentive, which will help ease funding stress on this technology. Nevertheless, we are looking at a long runway before hydrogen or some other fuel will replace natural gas.

Our site tour of Siemens Energy focused on additive manufacturing, prototyping new technologies, and decarbonization.