To achieve the EU Climate and Energy goals, a high penetration of renewable energy sources (RES) into the grid is required, as well as the use of alternative carbon-free fuels in already existing dispatchable centralised power plants. Combined Cycle Gas Turbine (CCGT) plants will be a crucial technology with the required flexibility to compensate the intermittency of the RES. The injection of alternative fuels will help the required “fuel switch” the EU is facing, drastically reducing CO/CO2/HC emissions, which are more difficult to manage in comparison to NOx. The P2X solutions, which are currently widely studied coupled with RES, could help the CC to levelling their load and reducing its environmental impact. Hence, developing proper technologies and solutions to couple P2X2P systems with gas turbines (GTs) is mandatory.

FLEXnCONFU, covering the whole value chain, is a pioneer “demonstration to market” project which will contribute to the valorisation of European GT and Power-to-Gas scientific and technological competencies, and to the creation of a clean hydrogen/ammonia society. Within FLEXnCONFU project, to level the CC load, the electricity production could be converted in H2 or NH3 as carbon free fuels via P2X2P application, in turn to be locally re-used in the same power plant to respond to varying demand. This solution will be demonstrated up to the Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 6 deploying a Power-to-Ammonia system in a relevant environment and up to TRL 7 installing a power-to-hydrogen system in a real operational environment (EDP’s Ribatejo power plant). To exploit the potential of NH3 combustion in reducing CO2 emission, combustion tests up to 100% NH3 will be performed in a heavy duty representative GT combustion system.

*This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement N° 884157.