LNG News Editor:
Swiss company Burckhardt Compression, a specialist provider of LNG sector equipment and technology, said its Chinese subsidiary, Shenyang Yuanda Compressor Co., has signed a contract with China’s Sinopec Guangzhou Engineering to supply three skid-mounted hydrogen compressors for a major project.
Burckhardt said the equipment was for the Sinopec Xinjiang KuChe green hydrogen project.
Investment
The Chinese say the green hydrogen project has a total investment of almost 3 billion Chinese yuan ($450M) and is the world's largest such project under construction to produce green hydrogen from solar photovoltaic power generation.
“It consists of five major parts: photovoltaic power generation, power transmission, hydrogen production from water electrolysis, hydrogen storage and hydrogen transmission,” explained the Swiss company.
“The project will produce 20,000 tons of green hydrogen per year with a hydrogen purity of more than 99.9 percent,” it added.
“The hydrogen produced by water electrolysis will be pressurized to 32 bar by compressors and transported via pipeline,” stated Burckhardt. One of Burckhardt’s key new products in the LNG shipping sector is its Laby GI Compressor type LP250, the world’s first oil-free reciprocating high-pressure fuel-gas compressor in service.
Burckhardt’s fuel-gas compressor system plays an important role on LNG carriers to help maximise fuel efficiency.
In addition to its Swiss operations, Winterthur-based Burckhardt has expanded in recent years to run businesses in the US, Japan and China and that’s why it owns Shenyang Yuanda Compressor.
Burckhardt said its high performance skid-mounted compressors are ideally suited to large green hydrogen projects and are capable of boosting pipeline transfers.
“With highly efficient frame, the whole machine is half the size of a conventional low-speed reciprocating compressor with the same capacity,” explained Burckhardt.
“Fully balanced moving parts eliminate compressor vibrations and improve operational reliability. The skid-mounted design enables easy on-site installation and shortens the project construction time,” it stated.
Burckhardt explained that according to the process requirements, the compressor needs to withstand pressure variations of approximately seven times the inlet pressure while guaranteeing a stable outlet pressure.
“It also needs to be optimized in terms of energy consumption. This places high demands on the compressor and control logic design, which will rely on Burckhardt Compression's extensive technology and experience to provide customers with excellent solutions,” it said.
Green hydrogen is hydrogen produced by splitting water by electrolysis. This produces only hydrogen and oxygen.
You can then use the hydrogen and vent the oxygen to the atmosphere with no negative impact. To achieve the electrolysis, however, you need electricity.
Hydrogen explained
The basic understanding of hydrogen is as an energy carrier and there are semantics behind its various names.
One has to make the distinction of hydrogen as a carrier and not an energy source.
What this means is that it needs a primary source of energy to be produced, either solar electricity as is the case in the Burckhardt project or hydro-power, nuclear power or gas-fired power to name just a few.
It should be noted that it is specifics of the production process, including the energy source it utilises, that determine whether hydrogen will be named green or blue.
Green hydrogen is hydrogen produced by splitting water by electrolysis as explained above.
Blue hydrogen is when natural gas is split into hydrogen and carbon-dioxide either by Steam Methane Reforming or Auto Thermal Reforming but the carbon-dioxide is captured and then stored.
