With global energy solutions company Black & Veatch as program manager, Ohio’s Long Ridge Energy Generation is retrofitting its 485- MW combined-cycle power plant to run on a blend of natural gas and carbon-free hydrogen, making it the nation’s first large gas turbine plant to transition operations to hydrogen fuel.

Long Ridge is working to reconfigure the plant to use a mix of natural gas and hydrogen – a rising star in power generation – after it begins commercial operations in August 2021. As the first worldwide plant to blend hydrogen in a General Electric H-class gas turbine, the Hannibal, Ohio-based site initially will burn 5% hydrogen by volume in the natural gas stream. The program is outlining the changes necessary to transition entirely to using 100% green hydrogen – produced by electrolysis that separates water into its oxygen and hydrogen elements – over the next decade.

Once completed, the Long Ridge Energy Generation Project will be among the world’s lowest emission baseload power plants of any type while being compact, low-impact and significantly more advanced than earlier generations of natural gas plants.

As part of the project, Long Ridge has partnered with energy infrastructure company New Fortress Energy’s new Zero division, which is focused on investing in and deploying advancing hydrogen production technologies to reach zero-emission targets.