Wartsila working on engine, power plant concept for pure hydrogen operations by 2025

New Delhi: Wartsila, a Finland-based energy company, is working towards an engine and power plant concept for pure hydrogen operations by 2025 to help meet its decarbonisation goals, said Venkatesh R, managing director and director - energy business, Wartsila, India.

“Wartsila engines can be operated on hydrogen and natural gas blends with up to 25 per cent hydrogen, and we are working towards an engine and power plant concept for pure hydrogen operations by 2025. We already have engine generating sets operating successfully on a natural gas and hydrogen blend,” Venkatesh told ETEnergyWorld in an exclusive interaction.

He added that at present, the company is investigating future fuels such as green hydrogen, synthetic methane, methanol and ammonia to provide complete flexibility across engines and the fuel chain. 

“Power sector will be one area where we expect to see off-take of green hydrogen or other forms of sustainable fuels to manage grid intermittencies and also for meeting the seasonal storage requirements. This is where we can add a lot of value…” added Venkatesh.
 

The company already has technologies that are capable of using ammonia while the needed combustion concepts to maximise engine performance and related safety technologies are under investigation, he said.

“For decarbonising the entire energy sector our study estimates that the demand for sustainable fuels in India will be over 89.2 MT by 2050. Currently, India consumes about 6.7 MT of hydrogen, 5.8 per cent of the global consumption, for refining and ammonia manufacturing for fertilisers,” Venkatesh added.

He said that meeting India’s demand for green hydrogen will require setting up 1,355 GW of electrolyser capacity.
 

“Domestic manufacturing of electrolysers and production of green hydrogen could create a new green technology market worth $39.8 billion, considering only electrolysers and gas storage, in India by 2050,” he said.
 

The company is investing and developing Power-to-X solutions and exploring opportunities with green hydrogen. Power-to-X allows the creation of carbon neutral synthetic fuels, by capturing carbon dioxide and combining it with hydrogen extracted from water, he added.