US firm pushes RE-gas investment

By MYRNA M. VELASCO

Kansas-headquartered global engineering firm Black & Veatch is recommending renewable energy (RE) and gas-fired power combo investments to ensure the success of "energy transition journey" and as a pathway to net zero emissions being advanced by many countries in the Southeast Asian region, including the Philippines.

“Southeast Asia must continue to prioritize the integration of renewable energy and the addition of new natural gas infrastructure to achieve an affordable, resilient and sustainable energy future,” the American engineering firm stated/

Based on the outcome of its own survey, Black & Veatch conveyed that prior to the energy crisis precipitated by the Russia-Ukraine war, “gas-fired power plants have a future as an investment class in Asia. Approximately half of the respondents believe that over the next five years there will be ‘more investment’ in gas or liquefied natural gas (LNG)-to-power facilities combined with carbon capture.”

Within the clean tech genre, RE and gas are touted to be the ‘match made in heaven’, as the flexibility that can be provided by gas-fed generating assets could systematically plug the capacity gap arising from the intermittent availability of generation when the breeze won’t blow or the sun will not shine.

In addition, the US firm has put forward that both policymakers and industry players be constantly open to innovation – primarily those on the game-changing and disruptive technologies that keep pace with the global goal of decarbonization.

The suite of prospective solutions set forth by Black & Veatch include those on hydrogen and ammonia; carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) now being experimented on by various energy markets; as well as link-up of power grids.

“The industry and governments in the region must continue to collaborate on enabling long-term conditions that facilitate the deployment of future technology solutions across hydrogen and ammonia, carbon capture, energy storage and bidirectional, cross-border grids,” the global engineering firm stressed.

In the view of Narsingh Chaudhary, executive vice president and managing director for Asia-Pacific of Black & Veatch, “a successful and equitable energy transition involves planning for and integrating multiple technologies to ensure that everyone has access to a stable and reasonably priced energy supply.”

He further said “working in tandem with renewable energy, highly flexible and dispatchable generation, such as gas-fired power generation and small and mid-scale LNG project development, are essential to accomplishing these goals.”

The US company explained “gas-fired power generation has the quick ramp-up and ramp-down capabilities needed to adapt to changing grid energy demands.”

It specified that “advanced gas turbines in a simple cycle configuration can supply more than 400 megawatts to the grid in 10 minutes and are designed to reach full combined cycle load in 30 minutes to one hour.”

Black & Veatch similarly expounded that “new gas turbine technologies can operate at low loads of less than 25 percent of their baseload capacity in some cases and ramp at 10 to 15 percent of their full load capacity per minute.”

Moreover, the company emphasized that “most modern turbine technology can co-fire emissions-free hydrogen, and by 2030, most original equipment manufacturers predict that new turbines will be 100 percent hydrogen capable.”

It was similarly pointed out that floating LNG liquefaction facilities and floating storage and regasification units (FSRUs), “can function as alternative and proven delivery mechanisms in LNG value chain.”

The company qualified that its own offered solutions on gas-fired generation “make it suitable for baseload generation and stabilizing the grid alongside an expected increase in battery energy storage system deployments.”