Wärtsilä begins tests on hydrogen thermal balancing engines

According to the Finnish marine and energy company, green hydrogen is forecast to deliver 13 per cent of global energy demand by 2070, but there are no commercially available engines that can effectively use the fuel.

The project in Vaasa, Finland, will assess Wärtsilä’s existing 31 gas engine technology to find the optimum parameters for running on hydrogen. Wärtsilä’s gas engines are currently used for flexible balancing power generation for power systems with high levels of renewables.

Engineering the hydrogen home

Green hydrogen, made from renewable energy using electrolysis, and green hydrogen-based fuels are expected to provide long duration energy storage to work alongside renewable generation and short-duration storage (such as lithium-ion batteries) to create reliable and fully decarbonised energy systems.

According to Wärtsilä’s energy system modelling, over 11,000GW of wind and solar power is required in the G20 alone in order to create 100 per cent renewable energy systems. It will require 933GW of carbon neutral thermal balancing capacity to enable the addition of this amount of renewable energy and stabilise these future power systems.