Raven SR waste-to-hydrogen plant in California to be powered by INNIO Jenbacher’s Ready-for-H2 engines
12 August 2022
Raven SR plans to use INNIO’s Jenbacher engines [60 Hz] with a “Ready for H2” option to produce renewable energy. The energy system will power and heat Raven SR’s S-Series hydrogen production facility at a sanitary landfill in Richmond, California. (Earlier post.)
At the site, landfill gas (LFG) will be the primary fuel to provide power for the non-combustion process that converts waste to hydrogen. The hydrogen product will be resold to power fuel cells in heavy-duty trucks. The Raven SR process (earlier post) will also provide a residual fuel containing residual green hydrogen from the concentration process to supplement the LFG to fuel the Jenbacher Ready-for-H2 engines to generate renewable power in a continuous loop.
The collaboration with Raven’s technology offers a strong renewable hydrogen alternative to electrolysis, using less electricity and no need for fresh water. INNIO’s Jenbacher engines will allow the Raven facility to generate a significant amount of their own electricity, reducing demand on California’s electrical grid.
This project produces onsite renewable hydrogen from waste, uses a blend of hydrogen to generate energy to power operations, and provides renewable hydrogen for the transportation industry. This is a model example of how innovation can enable sector coupling which will be critical on the global path to net zero.
—Dr. Olaf Berlien, President and CEO of INNIO
The Jenbacher engines are a very important element for us to realize our objective of producing renewable hydrogen with our non-combustion Steam/CO2 Reformation Process, independent of the grid. Raven’s success in the increasing energy and electricity crisis requires that we generate autonomous power onsite.
—Matt Murdock, CEO of Raven SR
As of 2022, Jenbacher gas engines can be offered with a Ready for H2 option, capable of running with up to 25% (volume) of hydrogen in the pipeline gas. As hydrogen becomes more readily available in the future, all Ready for H2 new units and most of the currently installed Jenbacher natural gas-fueled engines can be converted to operate on 100% hydrogen. The type 4 engines are already available today to run on 100% hydrogen.
Jennbacher Type 4 Ready for H2
Raven SR plans to bring its S-Series online in the first quarter of 2023 at the Republic Services West Contra Costa Sanitary Landfill in Richmond, California. This project will initially process up to 99.9 tons of organic waste per day and produce up to 2,000 metric tons per year of hydrogen.
INNIO is headquartered in Jenbach (Austria), with other primary operations in Waukesha (Wisconsin) and Welland (Ontario, Canada).
Here are the specs of their Type 4 60Hz engine:
https://www.innio.com/en/jenbacher
At an efficiency of up to 41.5% fuel cells can do better, but of course it is all down to cost, and their larger Type 6 hits 46% or so, which is pretty tough to beat by much.
Posted by: Davemart | 12 August 2022 at 01:08 PM
Raven SR is an almost zero CO2 process from MSW to H2 and uses the jenbacher LFG engines to supply most of the electricity required.
Posted by: Gryf | 12 August 2022 at 02:09 PM
Fulcrum Bioenergy uses a similar process to make Sustainable Aviation Fuel from MSW.
https://www.fulcrum-bioenergy.com/centerpoint-biofuels
Posted by: Gryf | 12 August 2022 at 02:12 PM
Hi Gryf
One of the sources of info I follow is 'Energy Transitions Org'
Their latest report come down on the side you were arguing about SAF versus hydrogen in planes:
https://www.energy-transitions.org/publications/carbon-capture-use-storage-vital-but-limited/
I can understand Airbus trying to make liquid hydrogen work, as if the numerous obstacles are in fact overcome it has at least theoretically the potential to enable air travel as we have been accustomed to it, at prices and with low emissions, with a major caveat about the unknown effects of water vapor.
But they reckon like you that what we will actually manage is SAF, and they put some interesting figures and context to it.
Like any discussion of energy matters, the Ukraine has made a lot of current figures out of date very swiftly, but it still helps set the context.
I hope you find some bits of it interesting, at least!
I am way short of being able to make any informed assessment of who is right, but clearly SAF is a more attainable objective.
Posted by: Davemart | 12 August 2022 at 02:48 PM
Energy Transitions makes a good point that there are many things needed to be done to achieve a “net-zero economy”, such as CCUS particularly where there are limited technical alternatives. The Raven SR and Fulcrum Bioenergy processes are also a limited solution, though they help reduce methane emissions in MSW landfills that are a large source of GHG generated by human activity.
In Japan, this is called “ MOTTAINAI” or Zero Waste Life: “reduce, reuse, recycle”.
Posted by: Gryf | 12 August 2022 at 06:17 PM
Energy Transitions is one of my favorite resources to provide figures to contextualize what is going on.
It is surprisingly tough to access NREL from abroad, presumably to keep commie infiltrators from Europe and so on out! ;-) so other credible and well researched sources are needed.
So for instance whether it is going to end up as liquid hydrogen or SAF, the price of electrolysers is critical, as is the surprising graphs, showing at what cost it is economic to run them for 2,000 hours per year, so making them a good fit for renewables.
At the time they analysed it, around $300kw was the answer, and we are getting there fairly quickly.
Posted by: Davemart | 13 August 2022 at 02:12 AM