Reduction of the Emission Footprint of Gas Turbines in Future Energy System Scenarios Through Optimized Hydrogen Admixture Strategies

Abstract Within the energy sector, the mitigation of climate change necessitates a paradigm change towards the replacement of conventional with sustainable power generation technologies. Due to the inherent volatility of renewable power generation technologies, dispatchable components, such as gas turbines (GT) will have to be used increasingly for residual load balancing. In addition, GTs are expected to operate fewer hours per year, more flexibly, and at lower capacities. However, fuel utilization in GT is inherently linked to emissions. As a potentially CO2-free energy carrier, hydrogen is a promising fuel for GTs and manufacturers are working on suitable combustor technologies. However, the availability of large quantities of CO2-free H2 remains unclear in the near future. Other pollutants such as NOx and emissions due to incomplete combustion are formed differently in part-load. Therefore, optimizing natural gas substitution based on available H2 quantities and load profiles can improve the overall emission footprint beyond just reducing CO2 emissions. In this study, a physical-based gas turbine performance model and an emission calculation tool are used to derive an optimized H2 admixture strategy for different load profiles. Characteristic load demand scenarios are derived from actual load profiles of gas power plants and the emission footprints are comprehensively evaluated by different environmental impact categories. In general, the emission footprint is increased significantly and moderately for capacity reduction and flexibility increase of GT operation. The availability of H2 in the near future is derived from forecasts for Germany, and the corresponding quantities are allocated to the partial loads according to the optimized strategy. In most scenarios, the addition of H2 is associated with a reduction in emissions compared to conventional fossil fuel operation. The greatest leverage of H2 admixture in reducing the environmental footprint is found when applied from the lowest load up, thus assisting in the start-up and shut-down process.