DEVELOPMENT OF H2-RICH SYNGAS FUELLED GT FOR FUTURE IGCC POWER PLANTS - ESTABLISHMENT OF A BASELINE

As part of the European Union (EU) funded H-2-IGCC project this work presents the establishment of a baseline Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) power plant configuration under a new set of boundary conditions such as the combustion of undiluted hydrogen-rich syngas and high fuel flexibility. This means solving the problems with high NOx emitting diffusion burners, as this technology requires the costly dilution of the syngas with high flow rates of N-2 and/or H2O. An overall goal of the project is to provide an IGCC configuration with a state-of-the-art (SOA) gas turbine (GT) with minor modifications to the existing SOA GT and with the ability to operate on a variety of fuels (H-2-rich, syngas and natural gas) to meet the requirements of a future clean power generation. Therefore a detailed thermodynamic analysis of a SOA IGCC plant based on Shell gasification technology and Siemens/Ansaldo gas turbine with and without CO2 capture is presented. A special emphasis has been dedicated to evaluate at an intermediate stage of the project the GT performance and identify current technical constraints for the realization of the targeted fuel flexibility. The work shows that introduction of the low calorific fuel (H-2 rich fuel more than 89 mol% H-2) has rather small impact on the gas turbine from the system level study point of view. The study has indicated that the combustion of undiluted syngas has the potential of increasing the overall IGCC efficiency.