Partner First Gen Corp. in the project for the production of liquefied natural gas (LNG) – Tokyo Gas Co. Ltd., is interested in implementing green hydrogen in the Philippines.
“Tokyo Gas does a lot of research on hydrogen, they call it e-methane. I think they want to bring this technology here too,” said First Gen Chairman and CEO Federico Lopez.
Tokyo Gas is reportedly planning to build a large-scale synthetic methane (e-methane) supply chain and expand it to offshore wind power, hydrogen and other renewable energy (RES) businesses.
The company has reportedly begun testing a new process that uses CO2 and green hydrogen to produce methane that can be blended with natural gas.
“The beauty is that eventually, when this technology becomes viable, it can even be used to re-energize your natural gas plants. In fact, many of the natural gas plants that we are introducing today are capable of running on a blend of hydrogen if it were available today,” Lopez said.
This technology, in which hydrogen can be run in combined cycle gas turbine (CCGT) power plants, is what First Gen is most interested in exploring.
“They are capable of doing this, so ultimately CCGTs can run on hydrogen if it is commercially available. This is part of our perspective, which is why we think the CCGT plans are probably the best addition to this transition,” Lopez said.
FGEN LNG Corporation, a subsidiary of First Gen, and BW LNG (BW LNG), a leading developer, owner and operator of floating gas infrastructure, expect to complete the construction of the LNG project in the near future.
Named BW Batangas, it provides LNG storage and regasification services to existing and planned First Gen gas-fired power plants and other third-party terminal users.
“We remain aiming to complete the terminal by March and FSRU [floating storage regasification unit] the ship will arrive around June or July of this year,” Lopez said.