Technology firm Siemens Energy has announced it will install two ‘hydrogen-ready’ gas turbines at German utility EnBW’s district heating power plant in the Munster district of Stuttgart.

The turbines will replace three coal-fired boilers at the plant, which EnBW had announced in March last year it would phase out by 2025.

“The fuel switch from coal to gas in Munster is an important building-block that will allow us to continue to have sufficient power-generating capacity in the coming years,” says EnBW managing board member Georg Stamatelopoulos.

“Over the medium term, we will be replacing gas as a fossil fuel with hydrogen. We are already laying the groundwork today. This contributes to our goal of first significantly reducing our company’s CO₂ emissions and then becoming climate-neutral by 2035,” he adds.

“Over the medium term, we will be replacing gas as a fossil fuel with hydrogen” Stamatelopoulos, EnBW

The gas turbines will be able to process a blend of up to 75pc hydrogen from the time they are shipped in 2025, with the overall package—including pipelines, conversion systems and boilers— prepared to handle 100pc hydrogen, according to Siemens.

“We cannot yet reliably predict when green hydrogen will be available in sufficient quantity and at affordable prices,” says Stamatelopoulos.

“But the technology should be in place by that time. We are not going to put the cart before the horse, which, by the way, is the objective in all our fuel switch projects.”

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Author: Polly Martin