[Courtesy of Doosan Heavy Industries & Construction]
SEOUL -- Doosan Heavy Industries & Construction, a key player in South Korea's power industry, will work with a public power company to demonstrate a gas turbine powered by green hydrogen. Unlike blue hydrogen produced by applying carbon capture and storage to reduce CO2 emissions, green hydrogen can be produced through electrolysis, a process of passing an electrical current through an electrolyzer to split water and release only hydrogen and oxygen.
Gas turbines have become one of the most widely-used power generating technologies because they reduce the emission of fine dust and other air pollutants. South Korea has presented a goal to commercialize a 300MW homemade hydrogen gas turbine by 2040. As a bridge power in energy conversion, a standard model of LNG turbines will be developed.
Doosan Heavy is responsible for developing a hydrogen gas turbine and its burner, while Korea Southern Power will convert a gas turbine in operation at its combined cycle power plant into a hydrogen turbine. "Applying a hydrogen power turbine using green hydrogen to a power plant can contribute not only to carbon neutrality but also to revitalizing the hydrogen economy," Doosan Heavy president Jung Yeon-in said in a statement on October 29.
In July, Doosan Heavy signed a similar hydrogen turbine deal with Korea Western Power. Doosan Heavy would secure technologies to mass-produce parts for hydrogen gas turbines. Korea Western Power would apply hydrogen turbine technology to new power plants and the conversion of old thermal power plants into hydrogen power plants.
Policymakers have described independence in gas turbine technology as an important task in terms of energy security. A task force involving private companies, state bodies and research institutes has been launched to push for the early commercialization of gas turbine power generation. Doosan Heavy has joined a project to demonstrate mixed hydrogen combustion technologies that burn natural gas together with hydrogen in the southeastern industrial city of Ulsan.
reporter
Lim Chang-won
cwlim34@ajunews.com
