Masdar and Hydrogen Energy Plan Hydrogen-Fired Power Generation Plant in Abu Dhabi

22 January 2008

Masdar, Abu Dhabi’s initiative for renewable and alternative energy and clean technology, and Hydrogen Energy, the joint venture between BP Alternative Energy and Rio Tinto (earlier post), will work together on the front-end engineering design of an industrial-scale hydrogen-fired power generation project with carbon dioxide capture. The plant would be located in Abu Dhabi.

Work has already started and front-end engineering and design (FEED) of the project is planned to be completed by the end of 2008, at a cost of some US$45 million. At the heart of the plant would be a natural gas reformer and carbon capture facility where 100 million cubic feet of natural gas per day would be transformed into hydrogen and CO₂ gases.

The hydrogen gas would be used to fuel gas turbines and generate around 420MW of low-carbon electricity, with water vapor being the main emission. This would be enough to provide more than 5% of all Abu Dhabi’s current power generation capacity.

The project would limit greenhouse gas emissions by capturing some 90% of the CO₂ generated, and safely and permanently storing up to 1.7 million tonnes of CO₂ per year.

The CO₂ would replace the natural gas currently being injected into oil fields to maintain pressure, thereby allowing the gas to be used to fuel Abu Dhabi’s continued growth, or to be exported. If this process was deployed at scale it would potentially release a significant amount of additional natural gas for Abu Dhabi and United Arab Emirates.

The CO₂ injected into the oil fields could also potentially enable previously unrecoverable oil to be produced. If deployed widely, this enhanced oil recovery (EOR) process could boost Abu Dhabi’s oil production.

The overall project would require total capital investment (excluding the investment in CO₂ transportation and sequestration) of about AED7 billion (US$2 billion). Subject to the completion of the engineering design and agreement on an enabling commercial structure, the partners aspire to make the decision to proceed with construction by early 2009. This should allow the plant to come into commercial operation in 2012.