The hydrogen fuel plant of Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems Co., Ltd. broke ground in Japan last year, and the plant will be operated by artificial intelligence.
'There will be unmanned vehicles in the future,' said Paul Browning, CEO of Mitsubishi's Hitachi Power Systems Americas, at the Bloomberg New Energy Finance Future Summit on Monday. 'In the future, there will be no-manpower power plants'.
Mitsubishi Hitachi Power System Park
He believes that artificial intelligence can make the power system more flexible and better coordinated, and the power plant will be able to predict and diagnose before the system failure occurs, and schedule its power according to the weather and market supply.
Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems is a joint venture between Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Hitachi Ltd. The power plant is planned to be completed by 2020. It will use wind or solar energy to convert water into hydrogen, and then burn hydrogen as electricity demand rises.
Browning stated in a blog last year that the driving force of the power system revolution is artificial intelligence, and how we transmit and consume energy. Mitsubishi's Hitachi power plant has a large number of sensors that can acquire large amounts of data. We can use advanced analysis software and humans. Insight analyzes these data.
Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems (MHPS) is one of the first companies to adopt data analysis and remote monitoring technology. It has already used MHPS-TOMONITM in consumer power plants around the world. It can help power plants to achieve about 65% efficiency and can operate autonomously.
Mitsubishi Hitachi 30% hydrogen mixed fuel gas turbine successfully tested
Recently, Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems Co., Ltd. (MHPS) used a large gas turbine with a 30% hydrogen fuel mixture. The test results confirmed that stable combustion can be achieved by burning a hydrogen-natural gas mixture using a newly developed MHPS proprietary burner.
Compared with natural gas power generation, carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are reduced by 10% using a 30% hydrogen mixture.
As part of a project of Japan's New Energy Industry Technology Development Agency (NEDO), the H2 blended combustion test was conducted at the MHPS Takasago plant using actual pressure combustion test equipment to develop technologies that implement the 'hydrogen society'.
In the 'hydrogen society', hydrogen will be widely used as a clean, carbon-free energy source that will no longer release greenhouse gases.
The 30% hydrogen-mixed fuel test was performed in premixed burners of the J-series gas turbines. The turbine inlet temperature was 1600°C, which produced a 700 megawatt (MW) output, and its power generation efficiency was higher than 63%.
The use of a 30% hydrogen mixture confirms stable combustion while satisfying operational thresholds related to nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions, combustion oscillations, etc.
Large-scale gas turbines adopt stable hydrogen-mixed combustion technology and adopt dry low NOx (DLN) burners developed by MHPS for this project as an improved version of the company's natural gas burners.
The combustion method is premixed and MHPS has extensive experience in using DLN burners.
The combustor's fuel nozzles generate a swirling airflow that allows more uniform premixed gas to be produced, thereby reducing NOx production. The outstanding advantage of this system is that in addition to the burners needing to be upgraded, other systems of the system can be used without modification, thereby reducing The potential cost of converting a natural gas power plant into a hydrogen plant.
