First Gen: Tokyo Gas wants green hydrogen to power PHL

By Lenie Lectura @llectura

“That’s the beauty that eventually, as that technology becomes viable, it can even be used to repower your natural gas plants. i n f act, today, many of the nat gasfired plants we’re putting in are capable of firing on blended with hydrogen, if it were available today,” said l o pez.

“Tokyo Gas is doing a lot of studies on hydrogen, e-methane they call it. i think they want to bring that technology here as well,” said First Gen Chairman and CEO Federico l opez. Tokyo Gas reportedly plans to build a large-scale synthetic methane (e-methane) supply chain and expand to offshore wind power, hydrogen and other renewable energy (RE) businesses. it has reportedly started testing a new process that uses CO2 and green hydrogen to make methane, which can be mixed in to supplement natural gas.

This technology, in which hydrogen can run on combined-cycle gas turbine (CCGT) power plants, is something that First Gen is most interested to explore.

“They are capable of that so it is something that CCGTs can eventually be run on hydrogen if it is commercially available. That’s part of our perspective, that’s why we think CCGT plans are probably the best complement for this transition,” said l opez. dubbed BW Batangas it provide lnG storage and regasification services to First Gen’s existing and planned gas-fired power plants and other third-party terminal users.

FGEn lnG Corp., a wholly-owned subsidiary of First Gen, and BW lnG (BW lnG), a leading developer, owner and operator of floating gas infrastructure, expects to complete the construction of the lnG project anytime soon.

“We are still targeting to finish the terminal by March and the FSRu [floating storage regasification unit] vessel to be coming in towards around June or July this year,” said l opez.