Kawasaki Heavy Industries, announced its receipt of the Hydrogen Technology of the Year Award in one of eight categories at Connecting Green Hydrogen MENA’s Hydrogen Future Awards 2024 for the company’s GPB17MMX 1.8 MW class 100% hydrogen-fueled, dry-combustion gas turbine. Connecting Green Hydrogen MENA is the largest hydrogen-related event in the Middle East, bringing in more than 3,000 participants from upwards of 50 different countries, including industry decision-makers, energy-related government ministers and corporate representatives. The “Hydrogen Technology of the Year” category acknowledges the advanced technologies, solutions and digital innovations that were developed that year and have positively impacted the hydrogen industry in aspects of production, storage, transportation and usage.

Hydrogen fuel offers the advantage of zero CO₂ emissions during combustion. However, it has a faster combustion velocity and higher combustion temperature than natural gas, which creates problems such as increased NOx emissions and overheating of combustor components.

Kawasaki has addressed these shortcomings by developing and commercializing the world’s first 100% hydrogen-fueled, dry-combustion combustor (“MMX combustor”)which utilizes a proprietary combination of Micromix combustion and supplemental combustion. Use of this product enables stable, clean combustion of hydrogen and hydrogen-mixed fuel with natural gas that is in compliance with the Air Pollution Control Act. Furthermore, during mixed-fuel combustion, the system’s hydrogen ratio is freely changeable between 50 and 100% in volume, which enables flexible operational responses to hydrogen supply fluctuations.

This latest award receipt represents high praise for Kawasaki’s major contributions to CO₂reductions through commercialization of the world’s first 100% hydrogen-fueled, dry-combustion gas turbine with a Micromix combustor.

By 2030, the company plans to include its MMX combustor in all cogeneration systems and grid-regulating power supply gas turbines that it sells. This is part of Kawasaki’s efforts to build hydrogen supply chains—encompassing all phases including production, transportation, storage and utilization—with an eye toward widespread hydrogen energy dissemination in the future. Electric power generation accounts for a large portion of the global CO₂ emissions, which is why gas turbines play a vital role in efforts to eliminate carbon emissions throughout the “utilization” phase. Therefore, Kawasaki plans to further accelerate efforts to develop combustion technology for gas turbines that use hydrogen fuel.