DOE awards General Electric two hydrogen combustion projects

General Electric (GE) was awarded two projects worth more than $12 million by the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management to advance hydrogen combustion.

The funding will allow GE to develop technologies to integrate higher levels of hydrogen into its gas turbine platforms—with a specific focus on GE’s F-class gas turbine fleet. It will help accelerate the transition towards a zero-carbon energy future.

GE Research’s project, which totals close to $7 million, will study the operation of hydrogen-fueled turbine components on special rigs in its combustion test facility in GE’s Research Lab in Niskayuna, NY. The team will examine how gas turbine efficiency can be improved for simple- and combined-cycle power generation applications.

“As everyone close to hydrogen technology knows, the technical challenges are considerable when you’re talking about being able to run a turbine on 100% hydrogen. Having worked on hydrogen combustion technologies for many years, we are aware of the many challenges and have made considerable progress over time. Working in cooperation with the DOE, we’re confident we can make even more strides that get us closer to 100%,” Keith McManus, who is leading GE Research’s project, said.

GE Gas Power’s award, totaling nearly $6 million, will focus on the study of highly reactive hydrogen fuels and addressing the challenges associated with this type of combustion dynamics. The project team, based in Greenville, S.C., will develop and test gas turbine components with natural gas-hydrogen fuel mixtures and up to 100 percent hydrogen.

“We applaud the DOE’s leadership, commitment, and investment in hydrogen combustion. The investments the agency is making will help us accelerate the development and testing of retrofittable F-class combustion systems capable of operation on 100% hydrogen using a combination of micro mixer and axial fuel staging technologies,” Jeffrey Goldmeer, emergent technologies director at GE Gas Power, said.

These GE projects are part of six projects totaling $25 million in federal funding announced by the DOE last week.