GE Vernova secures two H-class combined cycle equipment orders with hydrogen capability to replace coal power plants in Germany

GE Vernova’s Gas Power business announced it has secured two orders from EnBW to provide H-Class natural gas-fired combined cycle power generation equipment for EnBW’s Combined Heat and Power (CHP) power stations in Heilbronn and Altbach/Deizisau, near Stuttgart, the capital and largest city of the German state of Baden-Württemberg. The orders include the equipment, construction of the plants as well as software solutions, maintenance and services for ten years. GE Vernova will lead an international consortium for the projects, including the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) companies Bonatti and SENER. The projects will replace existing coal-fired plants with more efficient natural gas fired plants while enabling future fuel mix combustion of up to 100% by volume of hydrogen in the 2030s.

Heilbronn and Altbach/Deizisau efficient CHP plants are expected to deliver in total nearly approximately 1340 megawatts (MW) to the national grid, the equivalent needed to power approximately 2,4 million German homes1, as well as steam for district heating for the citizens, commerce and industry of Heilbronn and the larger Stuttgart area.

Each 680MW power plant will replace existing coal-fired units at Heilbronn and Altbach/Deizisau, with the new plants targeted to begin operation by the end of 2026. Switching from a coal plant to its gas equivalent can alone reduce carbon emissions by as much 60%, and lower emissions levels for other pollutants such as mercury, NOx, SOx and particulate matter, when using the most advanced HA gas turbines.

In conjunction with this announcement, EnBW today celebrated the commencement of construction work at the Altbach site at the presence of local authorities. The project is aligned to the European and national regulations in the decarbonisation path towards 2050 to promote district heating in achieving the goals of efficiency, energy sustainability, use of renewables, and reduction of fossil fuel use.

“Today we celebrated the start of the works with the local authorities, and our partners,” said Michael Class, Senior Vice President Generation Portfoliomanagement, EnBW. “These power plants will help to increase power supply security in Germany while continuing to phase out coal and expand a more reliable deployment of renewable energy resources in our country as we’ll be able to dispatch power quickly in response to grid fluctuations. In addition, the two power plants are designed to operate on up to 100% hydrogen by volume, in line with the national goal to deploy renewables and green hydrogen at large scale, but foremost in line with EnBW’s sustainability goals to be carbon-neutral by 2035. Others talk about hydrogen-ready power plants – we already started to built them. That makes the difference!”

“In a region with an increasing power demand due to planned coal-fired retirements, we are proud to work with EnBW, Bonatti and Sener, to support a lower-carbon future in Germany,” says Brice Raisin, Senior Executive Sales Leader of the GE Vernova’s Gas Power business. “Heilbronn and Altbach/Deizisau CHPs will be the first new GE Vernova’s H-Class combined heat and power plants to be installed in Germany, and they are expected to be among the most efficient and flexible, once they begin operation. We are committed to providing our advanced gas turbine technology to accelerate coal phase-out and increase the share of renewables as we work towards zero-carbon gas-based power generation with hydrogen.”

H-class fired combined heat and power plants can offer tremendous benefits to the residents of Stuttgart and the federal state of Baden-Württemberg. District heating application from gas-fired power plants is a good addition to heat pumps or solar thermal systems, which on one hand require a lot of space and can therefore often not be implemented in inner-city buildings and, on the other hand, heat from solar thermal systems is mainly only available in summer.

Each plant will be powered by a GE 9HA.01 gas turbine, an STF-D650 steam turbine, a W88 generator, a triple pressure with reheat Heat Recovery Steam Generator (HRSG) and GE Vernova's integrated Mark* VIe Distributed Control System (DCS) software solution to improve asset visibility, reliability, and availability while reducing operating and maintenance costs.

The agreement includes services and maintenance for ten years, as well as GE Vernova’s Digital business’ Asset Performance Management (APM) software. Using APM Reliability in the cloud, EnBW can gain access to powerful Digital Twin technology that allows for the use of Predictive Analytics to help reduce costs, achieve higher availability, and increase reliability and efficiency by amplifying the performance of the 9HA.01 once the power plants are operational.

Source: ge.com