Ballylumford Power-to-X

Our latest development project. The objective of this internationally significant project is to produce demonstrably green hydrogen and oxygen from renewable energy sourcessuch as wind and solar. The project will deploy an innovative 20MWe membranefree electrolyser inside a repurposed building at Ballylumford, Larne in Northern Ireland, to provide long duration electrical balance for wind energy that would otherwise go unused (curtailment).

The hydrogen will be distributed in a dedicated transmission pipeline and stored underground in a local salt cavern system for later use as carbon free fuel in both the transport and power generation sectors. The latter application will involve firing trials of a relocated 20MWe Open Cycle GasTurbine (OCGT) typically used for electricity generation on oil and gas platforms. We expect to see successful fuel switching reach >70vol% H2 blend in natural gas.

Further firing trials of the OCGT module, operating in the partloaded conditions increasingly seen during wind farm curtailment episodes(inefficient), will be carried out with oxygen being added to combustion air toassess the benefits of Oxygen Enhanced Combustion on OCGT fuel efficiency. This technique could have a significant impact on reducing carbon intensity levels of the Electricity Market. 

Results from the project will help inform future electrolyser deployment at GW scale, allow curtailment free connection of offshore windfarms at Ballylumford and help define effective security of supply solutions for the net zero era.  

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