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Uniper has signed an agreement to work with General Electric (GE) to decarbonise its fleet of gas-fired power stations and natural gas storage facilities.
Chief executive Andreas Schrierenbeck said the fossil fuels burnt within its plants will be replaced with blue and green hydrogen – the former being extracted from natural gas with carbon capture and storage and the latter being produced using renewable power and electrolysis – “as far as it is possible and sensible”.
“This agreement with the US manufacturer GE is another proof of our commitment to move ahead with the decarbonisation of our power generation and storage facilities,” said Schrierenbeck. “In a few years, Uniper’s European fleet will consist mainly of climate-friendly gas-fired power plants and CO2-free hydropower.”
He continued: “From now on, our investments will focus primarily on the further decarbonisation of the gas assets which could include post combustion carbon capture, utilization and sequestration as well as blue or green hydrogen. And here, clean hydrogen will – as far as it is possible and sensible – replace the fossil components of the gas plants.
“If we also succeed in using our gas storage facilities to a large extent for hydrogen, we will be closer to a solution to the core problem of the European energy transformation: the lack of storage capacity for fluctuating renewable energies on an industrial scale.”
The partners plan to publish a detailed roadmap by early 2021 covering the assessment of potential upgrades and the required research and development.
As of the end 2019, Uniper operated around 17.4GW of gas generation across Europe, including 4.2GW in the UK.
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