POWER July 2022 - 12

GLOBAL MONITOR
4. RWE's 1.6-GW Eemshaven power station near Groningen, Netherlands, is an ultrasupercritical
plant that is fired with hard coal and biomass. Completed in 2015, the plant reportedly
achieves an efficiency level of 46%. About 15% of the plant's power comes from biomass, and
RWE has considered converting the plant to biomass in the long term, " if it is economically
feasible and the right permits are in place. " Courtesy: RWE
be heated without natural gas by 2050.
According to Vattenfall, a company
wholly owned by the government of
Sweden, these changes are aligned with
the company's recently revised investment
strategy, which it says effectively
" reflects a 1.5-degree target " and a " goal
of fossil-free living within one generation. "
In June, Alexander van Ofwegen,
head of Vattenfall's Dutch Heat operations
and CFO for Vattenfall in the Netherlands,
said, " At the heart of Vattenfall's
Heat operations is, however, the district
heating and cooling business where Vattenfall
is focusing on decarbonizing the
heat supply to their customers as part of
the gas phase-out in the Netherlands. "
Proceeds from the transaction will give
the Swedish company " more resources
to invest in the energy transition, such as
offshore wind, and district heating and
cooling, " he added.
A decade ago, as Vattenfall was preparing
to bring the Magnum combined
cycle gas turbines (CCGTs) online, it
was grappling with billions of euros in
losses associated with rapid changes in
European energy markets, which were
characterized by a surplus of generation
capacity, mainly from overproduction
of renewables, and weak demand. The
conditions put immense pressure on
conventional gas and hard coal-based
generation, forcing the company to impair
most of its coal and gas assets in
the Netherlands and elsewhere. These
included the Magnum facility, which began
official operation with only one of its
three units running.
As originally conceived in 2008, Magnum
was designed as an integrated gasification
combined cycle plant, capable of
running on multiple fuels, including biomass,
gas, and coal. Vattenfall ultimately
decided that the facility, which is located
near a modern seaport, with availability
12
of space and infrastructure, and with a
good connection to the existing highvoltage
and natural gas grid, was better
suited as a gas-fired station.
The CCGT project today comprises
three Mitsubishi Power M701F units,
each composed of a heat recovery steam
generator, a gas turbine, a steam turbine,
and a generator. " This technology
ensures a very favorable output (about
58%), " Vattenfall has said. The plant,
pivotally, also has black-start capability,
as well as a solar park comprising more
than 17,000 panels with a maximum production
capacity of 5.6 MWe.
Meanwhile, in 2017, Vattenfall, auto
thermal reforming plant developer Equinor,
and gas grid infrastructure firm Gasunie
contracted Mitsubishi Power to
investigate the technical feasibility of hydrogen
firing at one of Magnum's three
440-MW CCGT units. The project, known
as the " Hydrogen to Magnum " (H2M),
envisions running the unit 100% on blue
hydrogen processed from Norwegian
natural gas by 2025 and then gradually
transitioning it to non-fossil hydrogen. So
far, an initial feasibility study has been
completed, but " evaluation, planning,
and design of specific modification ranges
in the gas turbine technological field
continue to be conducted by Mitsubishi
Power, " said Mitsubishi Power's parent
company Mitsubishi Heavy Industries.
For Essen, Germany-headquartered
RWE, Magnum's acquisition represents
an opportunity to develop Eemshaven
into one of the leading energy and hydrogen
hubs in Northwest Europe. Magnum
is located in the " immediate vicinity " of
RWE's 1.56-GW Eemshaven station, a
hard coal- and biomass-fired power plant
(Figure 4). Since 2020, RWE has explored
adding 600 MW of electrolyzers to the
Eemshaven plant fed by the 760-MW Hollandse
Kust West (HKW) VII offshore wind
www.powermag.com
farm, in a project it calls " Eemshydrogen. "
RWE envisions chemical plants in the
nearby industrial cluster in Delfzijl may be
potential buyers of the green hydrogen.
At Groningen province's Eemshaven port,
near Magnum, Gasunie is meanwhile developing
LNG terminals, which could be
additionally supported by heat supplied
from Magnum and Eemshaven.
RWE this year submitted bids for both
the HKW VI and VII sites (each 760 MW) to
contribute to the Dutch government's ambitious
build-out target of 21 GW for offshore
wind by about 2030. The proposed
design concept for HKW VI, notably, integrates
innovations to be implemented to
allow birds and bats to fly safely between
the turbines and under the rotor swept
area, " the company said.
Roger Miesen, CEO of RWE Generation
SE, in June noted the hub's nearness
to the Dutch North Sea and how the surrounding
former natural gas fields could
also allow Magnum and RWE's Eemshaven
plant to use carbon capture and
storage (CCS) technologies in the future,
allowing the Eemshaven site to be operated
" as not just CO2
negative CO2
neutral, but with a
output. " RWE is hoping to
get the necessary government support to
make the project " technically, politically,
and economically feasible, " it noted.
-Sonal Patel is a POWER senior
associate editor.
POWER Digest
Large-Volume Ammonia Co-Firing
Demonstration at JERA Coal Plant to
Begin a Year Earlier. Japanese firms
JERA-a joint venture between Tokyo
Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) and Chubu
Electric-and IHI Corp. on May 31 announced
a demonstration project to
co-fire fuel ammonia (20% of heating
value) at the coal-fired Unit 4 of the
4.1-GW Hekinan Thermal Power Station
in Aichi Prefecture will begin in fiscal
year 2023, a year earlier than originally
planned. " The project is an important
one that could be the first step toward
rapid decarbonization at low cost for
countries like Japan that need thermal
power generation. Therefore, in order to
establish the technology as quickly as
possible, JERA and IHI have been working
to shorten the installation period
for the burners, tank, pipes, and other
equipment required for the project, " the
company said. JERA and IHI have so far
wrapped up small-volume tests of fuel
ammonia at Hekinan Unit 5, which began
in October 2021 mainly to further
development of a co-firing burner that
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