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Modernization options for ammonia syngas trains can meet a wide range of plant requirements for uptime, efficiency, costs, and footprint. 

Modernization for Ammonia Syngas Trains with Steam Turbine Drives

Over the past few years, several trends have emerged in the turbomachinery industry. Decarbonization has been a big driver, challenging the limits of technology and spurring innovation. Supply and demand are two other industry drivers, as is the case with LNG and modular, mobile solutions. 2024 further magnified these trends, as industry experts weighed in on the fate of gas turbines, the struggles with energy transport and storage, the booming LNG market, and the rise in carbon capture. This year was also host to many product launches supporting net-zero momentum.

Check out the 2024 macro and micro trends.

In a world increasingly integrating renewable energies like solar and wind, the role of gas turbines in the short- and long-term has been in question. But, as many industry experts have pointed out over the past year, gas turbines are here to stay and offer a hybrid solution to the uptick in renewable-based power.

“Gas turbines enable flexibility,” said 

Giuseppe Tilocca, Scientific Officer at ETN Global

. “In decentralized energy systems, clean and dispatchable solutions such as gas turbines enable the energy transition—in fact, there is no energy transition without dispatchable solutions. … To maintain electricity and meet demand in Europe, we’ll need more than double the current flexibility by 2030 and five times more by 2050. There are not many available, affordable, and scalable alternatives for gas turbines’ long-term flexibility.”

Tony Brough, President of Dora Partners and Company

, reassures that “gas turbines are not going away; the renewable offset/peaking market continues to have long-term potential,” he said. “Ten years from now, the gas turbine market will still be going strong.”

Renewables should account for 30 - 40% of a large grid, according to 

Mark Axford of Axford Turbine Consultants

, “But gas turbines are an essential part of creating a reliable, affordable, and sustainable grid.”

Brough predicts that $22.3 billion will be spent on aeroderivatives between 2024 and 2033—GE/Baker Hughes will gain almost $20 billion of that share. The aeroderivative aftermarket will generate $31.5 billion over the next decade; $23 billion of that will be spent on GE/Baker Hughes machines.

Hybrid systems that combine gas turbines with renewable energy play to the strengths of both technologies, “providing reliable baseload power from gas turbines and intermittent clean energy from renewable sources,” said 

Carter Palmer, an Industrial & Marine Turbine Analyst at Forecast International.

 “Hybrid systems enhance grid stability, optimize energy efficiency, and reduce fossil fuel reliance.”

So, what does this mean for gas turbines? Palmer said they have the potential to gain even more popularity.

Alternative forms of energy, like hydrogen and ammonia, are garnering increased attention as turbomachinery seeks to decarbonize on an international scale, but there are several challenges associated with transporting and storing them.

“Unfortunately, hydrogen itself has a lot of nasty characteristics,” 

said Klaus Brun, Director of R&D at Ebara Elliott Energy and Rainer Kurz, Principal at RKSBenergy.

 “It's hard to compress, highly flammable, as a gas it’s not easy to deal with, etc. From a transportation and storage perspective, it leaks, has many safety issues, causes hydrogen embrittlement, etc., making it difficult to transport."

“Another option for transporting and storing gaseous hydrogen is lowering the temperature of hydrogen to form a liquid, like what is currently done with LNG for transport by tanker or ship, seems attractive,” the duo said. “The downside of liquefaction is the amount of energy needed to reach the necessary low temperature that has to be maintained during any transport process. This means the energy required for the refrigeration process to liquefy hydrogen is equivalent to 30 - 40% of the energy content of the hydrogen itself.”

Creating hydrogen-containing compounds, such as gaseous methane or liquid organic carriers, is another option. But right now, the hot transport vehicle of choice for hydrogen is ammonia. “It can be transported as a liquid, which makes the transport process efficient,” 

. “Certainly, making ammonia is well understood, as it is a key ingredient in fertilizer manufacturing. Having hydrogen available in fertilizer production avoids several production steps that ultimately lead to making ammonia, such as in the well-known Haber Bosch process.”

From a handling perspective: “Ammonia is a very toxic gas. If you touch it in liquid form, it causes skin burns rapidly. In vapor form, even at less than 100 PPMs, it’s very irritating, so it creates a lot of issues from the handling perspective,” 

. Transporting ammonia is difficult because ammonia is toxic and when combined with water becomes caustic: At ambient conditions, ammonia forms a toxic gas. In liquid form, under pressure, risks of exposure increase because large quantities have the potential to rapidly release into the air.

“A pipeline infrastructure is needed for the hydrogen supply of larger power plants,” said 

Peter Kutne, Head of the Department Gas Turbine at the Institute of Combustion Technology of the German Aerospace Center (DLR).

Hydrogen storage solutions are critical to buffer mismatches between production and consumption. But in terms of cost, “storage systems based on pressure vessels or multi-tube arrangements are only suitable for small- to mid-sized peak-load gas turbine power plants. Underground salt caverns offer the most promising option for large-scale hydrogen storage for mid-merit and large gas turbines,” Kutne said.

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) increased significantly during 2024. 

According to the Global CCS Institute’s 

, there was a 102% increase in CCS facilities in the pipeline compared to 2022: As of April 2024, there are 564 commercial CCS facilities in the project pipeline. North America is leading the way: The United States leads in deployment with 73 new CCS facilities entering the pipeline in 2023. Top applications in the United States are ethanol, ammonia, hydrogen, fertilizer production, power generation, and heat.

November and December filled our news feed with global carbon-capture project announcements. A few examples include:

 at the Brevik cement facility in Norway;

 partnered with an Australian company to develop and deploy post-combustion capture technology.

Spencer Schecht, Senior Business Development Lead, Honor Iosif, Public Affairs Manager, and Joey Minervini, Public Affairs Manager at the Global CCS Institute, said: “The Institute is seeing accelerating momentum for CCS in industries beyond the lower-cost applications of gas processing, ethanol, and ammonia production. CCS is being integrated into industries such as cement, steel, chemical plants, power plants, and even carbon-removal technologies, such as direct air capture, bioenergy with CCS, and waste-to-energy plants.”

Danny Rice, CEO of NET Power, spoke at this year’s 

 about his company’s work in CCS. Baker Hughes is partnering with NET Power to develop sCO

 turboexpanders and other pumping and compression technology to reach near-zero-emissions utility-scale power using natural gas. “We need to reduce carbon in a way that assures the energy supply,” said Rice. “The incentives within the Inflation Reduction Act make it attractive to create CCS projects at low cost.”

One of the challenges of integrating CCS is cost, so companies are exploring ways to reduce operational and capital costs. GE Vernova conducted a FEED study to reduce CCS costs and its overall footprint through its 

 (EGR) system, which increases the concentration of CO

The study findings, released by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management, found integrating GE Vernova’s EGR system, capable of capturing up to 95% of CO

could reduce more than 6% of the total cost of the carbon-capture facility compared to installing carbon capture without the EGR system

could reduce total carbon-capture operational costs per year (total costs include reductions to capital and operating costs)

The industry has been adapting technologies to support net-zero goals, and throughout 2024, several exciting turbomachinery advancements were announced.

 will operate on 100% renewable hydrogen with commissioning slated for early 2026.

“The new design … overcomes the challenges of hydrogen’s higher flame speed through precise design enhancements to the fuel nozzle, optimized water injection schedules, and advanced control modifications,” said Midhat Mirabi, Managing Director at GE Vernova’s Gas Power Aeroderivatives New Units. The unit is equipped with safety features, such as nitrogen purge systems and hydrogen fire detection systems.

, Palmer said, “While existing turbines can be retrofitted with hydrogen-compatible burners, the combustion characteristics of hydrogen differ significantly from natural gas, necessitating modifications to ensure efficient and stable operation.”

GE Vernova and IHI are developing a two-stage combustion system with a rich dome to resolve the ammonia-NOx problem, building on IHI’s 2-MW gas turbine using 100% liquid ammonia.

“GE Vernova’s technology either runs at or near stoichiometric—i.e., fuel and air in perfect chemical balance—or on the lean side, but the rich side of the stoichiometric dome—fuel-rich and oxygen lean—provides less air for the nitrogen to turn into NOx when using ammonia,” explained 

Dr. Jeffrey Goldmeer, Global Hydrogen Value Chain Leader at GE Vernova

 to accelerate the energy transition and close technological gaps. The three technologies are in the early stages of commercialization: an advanced rotor hydrogen compressor, a Turbo Heater, and a rotating olefins cracker (ROC).

The STC-SVm single-shaft turbocompressorutilizes a multi-stage rotor that permits circumferential speeds at the impeller outer diameter of up to 600 m/s without exceeding material stress limits, allowing a reduced footprint by up to 50% compared to a conventional turbocompressor solution in low-mole-weight gas applications.

The Turbo Heater employs high-speed gas dynamics to directly heat gas through a shock wave train. The machine is driven by an electric motor and does not require the direct burning of fossil fuels or a heat exchanger.

The ROC is driven by an electric motor or a hydrogen-fired gas turbine. Kinetic energy produced via rotation is converted to heat through a controlled shock wave, creating a temperature rise in the gas to initiate pyrolysis reactions without heat transfer from heat exchanger surfaces.

 experienced significant shake-ups in 2024, with the Russia-Ukraine conflict and the Department of Energy’s LNG export pause disrupting production, imports, and exports. Despite these and other events, 

 experienced a shift starting in late 2024, as a wave of new liquefaction projects came online.

In April 2024, the U.S. Energy Information Administration anticipated a modest increase in U.S. LNG exports for the year (2%) followed by significant growth in 2025 (an additional 18%). This growth is mirrored by expectations for a rise in U.S. natural gas exports by pipeline (3% in 2024, 4% in 2025) and a slight dip and recovery in pipeline imports in 2024 and 2025, respectively.

The United States, Australia, and Qatar produced three-fifths of the world’s LNG in 2023, with the United States leading the pack as the top global LNG exporter after Russia fell behind when the Nord Stream pipeline exploded in 2022.

The Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis expects global LNG production capacity to grow by roughly 193 MTPA from 2024 - 2028, rising from ~474 MTPA of nameplate capacity at the beginning of 2024 to 666.5 MTPA by the end of 2028—the fastest capacity growth in the history of the global LNG industry, representing a 40% increase in five years.

A couple of trends have emerged from this sector of the industry: modularization and e-LNG. “LNG projects are requiring modularization to eliminate risk in the field, i.e., stick built, in addition to a decline in available field labor,” said Joel Schubert, Director of Business Development LNG at Siemens Energy. “We also see a trend for future LNG projects going forward with e-LNG (electric motor drives) to reduce emissions and their carbon footprint.”

launch of NMBL LNG: a modular solution for mid-scale gas liquefaction. It consists of modules capable of processing from 0.8 up to ~2 MTPA each and is based on the single-mixed refrigerant liquefaction process. Each NMBL liquefaction train includes a process module, a turbo or electric motor-compressor for the mixed refrigerant, the surge vessel for refrigeration storage, the cold box of brazed aluminum heat exchanger type, and the e-room.

“The global LNG market is responding with an unprecedented surge of additional export capacity,” said Andrea Intieri, LNG Platform Leader of Gas Technology Equipment, Industrial, and Energy Technology at Baker Hughes. “According to Baker Hughes, over the next three-year period (2024 - 2026) approximately 100 MTPA of liquefaction capacity is expected to reach a final investment decision.”

A micro trend our team has observed is the use of alternative fuels such as methane, ammonia, and methanol to propel marine vessels.

In September 2024, Amogy’s carbon-free, ammonia-powered maritime vessel—the 

—successfully completed its maiden voyage on a Hudson River tributary, upstream from New York City. The vessel is a tugboat originally built in 1957, equipped with Amogy’s ammonia-to-electrical power system. In the coming months, the company will release a case study with additional technical details.

“Ammonia is the world’s second most produced chemical, with around 20 million tons moving around the globe through 200 ports each year,” said Seonghoon Woo, CEO and Co-Founder of Amogy. “With that track record, shifting the industry mindset to use it as a fuel is completely achievable and can happen at an accelerated pace.”

In late 2024, MAN Energy Solutions announced a significant development for its marine-based ammonia engine work: the 

. With funding from the German government and extensive industry partnerships, the project aims to develop a four-stroke, medium-speed, dual-fuel test engine that operates on ammonia for large-scale ship applications. This follows the design and testing of its first two-stroke ammonia engine.

“We are using synergies between two-stroke and four-stroke in both directions with a deep technological exchange," said Christian Kunkel, Head of Combustion Development and Four-Stroke R&D at MAN Energy. “[In terms of ammonia], we can copy and adapt some of the technical concepts and ideas from two-stroke engine development, mainly in the fields of safety concepts, compatibility of materials, and lube oil."

The first AmmoniaMot project focused on fundamental investigations regarding the combustion of ammonia in an internal combustion engine. The main takeaways from the AmmoniaMot project [that apply to developing four-stroke engines] were:

ammonia seems to be a suitable fuel to operate four-stroke medium-speed engines

a greenhouse gas reduction potential of up to 90%

This year, the turbomachinery industry was characterized several trends—from technological innovation to gas turbines’ supporting role in renewably integrated grids.

Top Turbomachinery Trends of 2024

GE Vernova’s LM6000 gas turbine will operate on 100% renewable hydrogen, what the company is calling, a “first of its kind” turbine solution. The aeroderivative is part of its LM6000VELOX package, and per an order with ATCO Australia, will deliver four LM6000VELOX units to the Whyalla hydrogen power plant in Australia. Commissioning is slated to begin in early 2026.

Midhat Mirabi, Managing Director at GE Vernova’s Gas Power Aeroderivatives New Units, told 

“The new design represents a leap forward in innovation, overcoming the challenges of hydrogen’s higher flame speed through precise design enhancements to the fuel nozzle, optimized water injection schedules, and advanced control modifications. Equipped with robust safety features, including nitrogen purge systems and hydrogen fire detection systems, it sets a new benchmark for reliability and safety. This is engineering excellence redefined."

Eric Gray, CEO of GE Vernova’s Gas Power business, said over the years, the company has been investing in R&D to redesign its combustion systems to operate on various blends of hydrogen. 

The Whyalla hydrogen power plant will deliver flexible power, additional grid stability, and consistent supply output for South Australian homes and businesses by leveraging spare renewable energy produced via large-scale wind and solar farms. It may provide a combined capacity of up to 200 MW, meeting local electricity demand when renewable energy sources enter intermittency periods.

“The state of South Australia is already capable of running its grid on 100% renewable energy; however, this requires devices such as gas turbines or synchronous condensers to provide inertia for grid stability," said Dr Jeffrey Goldmeer, Director of Energy Transition, GE Vernova. "Gas turbines, when operated on 100% renewable-based hydrogen, can provide dispatchable and decarbonized power.”

“With more than 70% of energy generated from renewable resources, South Australia is set to become a global leader in producing and utilizing renewable hydrogen and we are delighted to be part of this project that can unlock decarbonization opportunities,” said John Ivulich, CEO and Country Chair, ATCO Australia. “By deploying GE Vernova’s first-of-its-kind aeroderivative solution, able to operate on 100% hydrogen, we will support South Australia’s continued energy transition and decarbonization journey, in alignment with the state’s goals outlined in the Government’s Hydrogen Jobs Plan.”

The four LM6000VELOX units will be powered by renewable hydrogen produced at the Whyalla complex. Upon completion, Whyalla will include large-scale hydrogen production and storage plants.

GE Vernova has a proven reputation as a supplier of power infrastructure,” said the Premier of South Australia, Peter Malinauskas. “More importantly, GE Vernova is capable of producing turbines that can operate at 100% capacity on hydrogen. This means we can harness South Australia’s renewable resources and put it to productive use, helping develop a more sustainable electricity supply across our state.”

’s heavy-duty gas turbine combustion parts business located in Greenville, SC. Per the definitive agreement, GE Vernova will obtain all assets at Woodward’s Greenville site, which is focused on supplying parts and services for the company’s gas turbine manufacturing operations and supports its investments in United States manufacturing, jobs, and domestic supply chain. The transaction is expected to close in early 2025.

 was also chosen by the Department of Energy (DOE) to receive an award under the H2SENSE Exploratory Topic—a program run by the DOE’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy that supports technologies for gas detection and quantification across the hydrogen supply chain.

The LM6000 gas turbine units feature a newly designed fuel nozzle, optimized water injection schedules, advanced control modifications, and safety features.

First GE Vernova Aeroderivative Gas Turbine Operates on 100% Hydrogen

John Crane’s services protect what matters. People, plant, and performance.

Engineering A Better Future

John Crane delivers turbomachinery solutions that reduce GHG emissions and increase efficiency. We are committed to achieving net zero for Scopes 1, 2 & 3 by 2050.

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