At Rolls-Royce, we are committed to ensuring our products are fully compatible with sustainable fuels. With demand for hydrogen engines increasing, Andrea Prospero, a hydrogen engine developer at Rolls-Royce and his colleagues are developing a conversion kit for existing mtu gas engines.
“With this conversion kit, customers can turn their gas engine into a hydrogen engine, for example as part of a major overhaul, and thus generate CO2-neutral energy,” Andrea explains.
As part of a consortium with five companies and research institutes, Rolls-Royce engineers are developing the necessary technologies for new, more efficient hydrogen combustion engines. The publicly funded Phoenix (Performance Hydrogen Engine for Industrial and X) project aims to deliver a hydrogen engine with the same electrical and thermal energy as currently available natural gas CHP units in the larger output range for the first time.
“We are convinced that hydrogen combustion engines will become a central pillar of the energy transition,” says Tobias Ostermaier, who heads the decentralised energy systems business at Rolls-Royce. “As soon as the availability of green hydrogen is ensured on a large scale, the technology of highly efficient hydrogen block-type thermal power stations promoted in the Phoenix project will be ready for use.”