JERA starts hydrogen demonstration project at an LNG plant in Japan

JERA Co., Inc. will conduct a demonstration project related to hydrogen utilization at an LNG thermal power plant in Japan under the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization’s Green Innovation Fund program.

The project will switch a portion of the LNG fuel used to generate electricity at JERA’s large-scale LNG thermal power plant in Japan to hydrogen and evaluate the resulting operational and environmental characteristics over a period of approximately 5 years from October 2021 to March 2025.

Based on the results of a feasibility study to be conducted early in the Project period, JERA aims to construct hydrogen supply facilities and other related facilities at its LNG thermal power plant, to install combustors capable of co-firing hydrogen and LNG in its gas turbines, and to switch approximately 30% of the LNG used for electricity generation (by volume, equivalent to approximately 10% of heating value) to hydrogen by fiscal 2025.

This is Japan's first initiative to use a large amount of hydrogen as fuel in a large-scale commercial LNG thermal power plant.