Our client, Hanwha Corporation, announced that they have started demonstration work to increase the hydrogen mixing rate from 1% to 63% on the world’s first medium-to-largesized (78MW or more) LNG (liquefied natural gas) gas turbine generator. This hybrid generator would reduce the carbon footprint level by 23% and ensure nitrogen oxides levels fall below the standard of 50-80ppm in Korea.

Turbines are meticulously designed and have extremely fine operational parameters. The customer needed to validate the performance of their GTG by stressing turbines before and after installation to reveal potential issues. It is expected that they will be tested to their full capacity – can they handle maximum load, do they synchronize when multiple units run in parallel, and can they take and shed load without issue? During the test, the load provided has also to remain consistent and available. If not, the test would need to be restarted – delaying commissioning and increasing the fuel cost.

In order to use the local grid to support their load testing, the customer would have to get approval from Korea Electrical Construction Association (KECA) and ensure their safety standards were strictly adhered by. It was also challenging as a high power load was required, and the local grid had to support other industries as well. The customer could not take up too huge of a power load from the local grid or risk disrupting the power supply of the grid’s other customers. It would also not make financial sense to specially purchase load banks just to test their gas turbine.