EnergyAustralia has begun operations on the 320-MW Tallawarra B gas-fired energy station in New South Wales (NSW)—Australia’s first peaking energy plant able to working on a pure fuel and hydrogen gasoline mix. The challenge’s begin on Feb. 19 additionally marks GE Vernova’s first deployment of a hydrogen-capable dual-fuel 9F fuel turbine.
The $300 million ($196 million) open cycle fuel turbine (OCGT) challenge contains a GE Vernova 50-Hz 9F.05 fuel turbine. It’s anticipated to run initially on pure fuel and transition to a mix of 5% of hydrogen by quantity by 2025, relying on “the event of a hydrogen manufacturing {industry} of an applicable measurement and scale,” GE Vernova stated on Monday.
The challenge in Yallah (60 miles south of Syndey) is situated subsequent to EnergyAustralia’s 440-MW Tallawarra A gas-fired station, a GT26 mixed cycle energy plant constructed to exchange a 320-MW coal-fired energy station that operated till 1989. Whereas Tallawarra A is slated for an effectivity improve later this yr, Tallawarra B’s fast-start and dual-fuel capabilities complement Tallawarra A’s flexibility attributes, that are rising essential for regional balancing. Tallawarra B is notably Australia’s “first gas-peaking energy station with complete emissions offset over its operational life,” stated EnergyAustralia.
The corporate, a CLP Group subsidiary that serves as a serious retailer throughout japanese Australia and holds a 5-GW era fleet, stated NSW’s fast-start and suppleness wants have grown extra pressing after AGL, Australia’s largest generator, shuttered its huge 1.6-GW coal-fired Liddell Energy Station within the NSW Higher Hunter area in April 2023. “Tallawarra B permits and enhances extra renewables coming into the system as coal-fired energy stations retire,” stated Mark Collette, EnergyAustralia’s managing director.
Pinning Down Enough Hydrogen Provide
Improvement of Tallawarra B kicked off in Might 2021, furnished with A$78 million from the NSW authorities to assist ship monetary shut, together with A$5 million from the federal authorities to make sure the challenge was hydrogen-ready.
Below the Might 2021 funding settlement, EnergyAustralia will purchase 200,000 kilograms of renewables-based hydrogen—as much as 5% of the plant’s gasoline use—beginning in 2025 to offset direct carbon emissions from the challenge over its operational life. Based on NSW’s Hydrogen Technique, unveiled in October 2021, the funding will place Tallawarra B as a foundational off-taker of hydrogen produced by the proposed Illawarra hydrogen hub. In March 2023, the NSW authorities awarded Linde subsidiary BOC A$28.5 million to develop the hydrogen know-how hub on its present Port Kembla operations web site.
BOC, nonetheless, has not but made a last funding resolution. The proposed hub is predicted to incorporate a 10-MW electrolyzer with the potential to supply about 4 tonnes of hydrogen per day, although over the long run, the challenge might be expanded to a 650-MW electrolyzer. NSW, notably, in August 2023, additionally furnished Origin Vitality with A$45 million to develop the Hunter hydrogen hub 200 miles north in Newcastle.
Tallawarra B: Goal-Designed
EnergyAustralia stated it selected an OCGT for Tallawarra B over a mixed cycle fuel turbine “as a result of it’s quicker to begin and may present electrical energy into the grid extra shortly when there’s excessive demand.” It in the end picked a consortium comprising GE Vernova and engineering, procurement, and building (EPC) agency Clough to construct the challenge.
GE supplied the plant’s GE 9F.05 fuel turbine—its most superior F-class machine—together with the challenge’s A78 generator, a generator step-up transformer, and a Mark* Vie management system. Gasoline turbine equipment have been “packaged in modules for the challenge, which diminished on-site set up work whereas providing easier and quicker serviceability for the plant operator,” it famous.
As a vital challenge element, GE Vernova additionally supplied a A$13 million Plume Dispersion Machine (PDD), a 54-tonne gadget that sits on prime of the exhaust stack to cut back the plume’s vertical velocity. “An OCGT works in a way just like a jet engine,” EnergyAustralia defined. “The exhaust from the turbine is extremely sizzling and, as we all know, sizzling air rises. The warmth of the exhaust gases relative to the skin air temperature means it rises quickly within the air. With out a PDD on prime of the exhaust stack, the exhaust gases would rise into the environment as a column of sizzling air.”
The PDD at Tallawarra B, crucially, minimizes the “potential results on the security of plane utilizing the close by Shellharbour Airport,” EnergyAustralia stated. Tallawarra B’s “exhaust gases should meet a important plume velocity of not more than 6.1 meters/second or beneath 700 ft above imply sea stage, as stipulated by the Civil Aviation Security Authority,” it famous.
The World’s First GE Vernova Twin-Gas 9F.05 Gasoline Turbine
Since launching its first F-class machine in 1991, GE Vernova has acquired orders for over 450 GE 9F fuel generators. The launch of Tallawarra B in 2021 marked not solely the primary of its variety in-built Asia but additionally the inaugural F-class machine designed to run on a mix of pure fuel and hydrogen.
As Jeffrey Goldmeer, now GE Vernova director of Hydrogen Worth Chain, defined to POWER in 2021, the F-class fuel turbine’s hydrogen functionality as configured with the DLN2.6+ combustion system “is nearer to fifteen% to twenty%.” The pilot challenge Tallawarra B was deliberate to start operations with 5% hydrogen to bear in mind obtainable inexperienced hydrogen, he instructed. “In order that’s not a fuel turbine limitation, that’s an entry level to the fuel turbine,” he stated. “There’s room to develop because the inexperienced hydrogen provide chain will increase, as manufacturing will increase.”
GE Vernova has since made important headway in exploring combustion options to allow 100% hydrogen combustion all through its fleet. That features a collection of notable hydrogen combustion “firsts” for its H-class and aero-derivative fuel generators, together with at industrial energy crops. Nevertheless, it has additionally got down to exhibit hydrogen combustion’s system peaking capabilities. Later this yr, for instance, a totally purposeful challenge at Duke Vitality’s DeBary energy plant in Florida is slated to exhibit an built-in 100% hydrogen power-to-power system for industrial peaking, leveraging one in all DeBary’s 4 83-MW GE 7E fuel generators.
The corporate’s efforts to outfit its F-class with 100% hydrogen capabilities are, for now, progressing below a challenge that’s backed with $6.6 million in funding from the U.S. Division of Vitality. In tandem, the corporate has individually set out to develop a retrofittable 100% ammonia-capable fuel turbine combustion system that will be appropriate with GE’s present 6F.03, 7F, and 9F fashions. A collaboration introduced in January 2024 with Japanese built-in heavy {industry} group IHI Corp. targets a possible commercially obtainable ammonia-capable product by 2030.
Ramesh Singaram, president and CEO of GE Vernova’s Asia Gasoline Energy phase, on Monday highlighted Tallawarra B’s significance, suggesting that the challenge would function an indication of the “substantive function that fuel applied sciences can play in decreasing carbon emissions, guaranteeing dependable electrical provide, and combating local weather change.” GE Vernova is “dedicated to delivering dependable, steady, cost-effective power that helps power suppliers, like EnergyAustralia, to help with growing a hydrogen provide chain and transitioning Australia to a decrease carbon future,” he stated.
Australia’s Quest for Decarbonized Reliability
Tallawarra B marks the primary gas-fired energy station in-built NSW in additional than a decade, nevertheless it is only one of a number of capability additions the state must urgently bolster its reliability profile.
NSW at present procures round 60% of its energy from 4 coal crops, however by 2033, three are set to retire: the 1.3-GW Vales Level B (by 2033), 3-GW Eraring, and a pair of.7-GW Bayswater (2030–2033). The state’s urgency stability its provide and demand profile amplified additional in February 2022, when Origin Vitality notified the Australian Vitality Market Operator (AEMO) of plans to retire the 3-GW Eraring Energy Station early in August 2025, citing financial hurdles.
Whereas the AEMO’s newest Vitality Safety Goal (EST) Monitor Report for NSW forecasts a surplus of as much as 1 GW for the area by 2025, it has warned that Eraring’s closure will precipitate a provide shortfall of as much as 1.4 GW by 2030. “At this level, agency capability from outdoors this sub-region can be known as upon to fulfill demand in peak demand durations, however can’t be made obtainable to the vast majority of New South Wales clients resulting from forecast constraints on intra-regional transmission infrastructure,” it stated.
At the very least over the close to time period, NSW could add 650 MW of extra variable renewable power (VRE) era. By 2033, new VRE sources will add as much as 3 GW. NSW plans to agency up the VRE with 3.7 GW of extra storage by 2033.
That can embody Snowy Hydro 2.0, a 2.2-GW pumped hydro storage megaproject that’s projected for completion in December 2028. One other notable main storage challenge below building is Black Rock’s Waratah Tremendous Battery, an 850-MW/1,680-MWh lithium-ion battery storage challenge that ought to come on-line in 2024/2025. When operational, that challenge may turn out to be the world’s largest battery power storage system, Black Rock claims.
Nevertheless, the AEMO stresses that fuel energy will proceed to play a big function. Together with Tallawarra B, Snowy Hydro is predicted so as to add a 660-MW OCGT plant close to Kurri Kurri by the tip of 2024.
The Kurri Kurri challenge, identified commercially because the Hunter Energy Undertaking, will characteristic two Mitsubishi Energy hydrogen-ready F-class (M701F) fuel generators. Snowy Hydro expects the OCGTs will probably be able to initially operating on as much as 15% hydrogen. With “extra funding, we count on they are going to be able to as much as 30% hydrogen,” it stated. Like Tallawarra B, “the power to run on hydrogen relies on the stability of plant modifications and the supply of inexperienced hydrogen,” the corporate famous.
Tallawarra A Poised for Future-Resilient Improve
On Monday, EnergyAustralia’s Managing Director Collette instructed the corporate’s hydrogen functionality varieties a cornerstone of its future technique. “We’re positioning each Tallawarra stations to play a long-term function in New South Wales’ power future and our personal plans to attain web zero by 2050,” he famous.
At Tallawarra A, EnergyAustralia is pursuing a challenge to improve Tallawarra A’s 14-year-old GT26 fuel turbine with a high-efficiency (HE) improve. The HE improve “blends cutting-edge know-how from GE’s industry-leading F and H class fleets with additive manufactured components and improvements in aerodynamics, materials science, and combustion dynamics,” GE Vernova has famous.
Whereas GE Vernova final yr instructed the improve could also be operational by mid-2024, EnergyAustralia has made investments to make sure Tallawarra A is “additionally fuel/hydrogen-capable when the inexperienced hydrogen manufacturing {industry} within the Illawarra is of an applicable measurement and scale,” Collette stated.
“In April, we are going to start a [A$90 million ($59 million)] improve and overhaul of Tallawarra A,” he famous. “It will improve the capability and effectivity of the station from 440 MW to 480 MW whereas additionally enabling using as much as 37% hydrogen as a gasoline when inexperienced hydrogen is commercially obtainable.”
—Sonal Patel is a POWER senior affiliate editor (@sonalcpatel, @POWERmagazine).
