Pollutant Emissions Reporting and Performance Considerations for Hydrogen–Hydrocarbon Fuels in Gas Turbines

Abstract

Hydrogen (H2) fuel for gas turbines is a promising approach for long duration storage and dispatchable utilization of intermittent renewable power. A major global discussion point, however, is the potential air quality impact of hydrogen combustion associated with nitrogen oxide (NOX) emissions. Indeed, several studies in the combustion literature have reported elevated NOX concentrations in terms of dry ppmv NOX at 15% oxygen (O2) as a fuel's H2 fraction is increased. Yet, as emphasized in this work, this practice of directly comparing emissions based on dry ppmv at a reference O2 concentration (ppmvdr) is inappropriate across hydrogen and hydrocarbon fuel blends due to differing concentration changes induced by drying and referencing the corresponding exhaust gasses. This paper addresses three distinct approaches for comparing emissions consistently across fuel blends. Furthermore, it presents examples that quantify the differences in the apparent pollutant emissions between each approach and the usual ppmvdr reporting practice across the full range of hydrogen–methane mixture ratios. In all of the considered approaches, ppmvdr emissions values are shown to be inflated for H2 fuel blends relative to hydrocarbon fuels, making them unsuitable for direct comparisons of emissions among conventional and alternative fuels.