Boosting efficiency and cutting emissions for gas turbines

We speak to Fabio Ciccateri of Finno Exergy about his company’s pulsed combustion system for gas turbines. Finno Exergy was a New Energy Challenge winner in 2020.

The NEC and working with Shell helped very much in our approaches to OEMs and investors.

How would you describe your technology and what it does?

Our pressure-gain technology is a new way of burning fuel in gas turbines to improve their efficiency and make them more flexible. This solution, which can be retrofitted, reduces fuel consumption by up to 20% and enables the turbine to run with any blend of hydrogen and natural gas. This technology can cut carbon dioxide emissions and costs immediately and is ready for carbon-neutral fuels whenever they are developed and deployed at scale.

What did winning the NEC mean for the company?

It helped us gain credibility. We aim to demonstrate to major industry players that our innovation, developed in Finland, has strong commercial potential. The NEC and working with Shell helped very much in our approaches to original equipment manufacturers (OEM) and investors.

What kinds of things have you done as a result?

After the NEC, we upgraded the prototype test unit and proved that we could reach the 20% efficiency gain in a small-scale prototype. Since then, we have continued inside the Shell GameChanger programme, setting up a new laboratory in Finland, where we could test the system with any blend of hydrogen and methane. And we worked on a technology development road map to cover the route from where we were three years ago to the point where the technology would be implemented in an industrial gas turbine. We also carried out market research.

Shell is one of the biggest users of industrial gas turbines and so we got great insights into what customers really want in an industrial application. For example, in the oil and gas industry, there are gas turbines all along the value chain from upstream to downstream. Insights gained through Shell’s involvement helped us better understand potential industrial applications and market pathways.

Did the Shell GameChanger process make you think differently about what you were doing?

The programme helped us put together the information required to open the door with OEMs, stressing the importance of things like validation, certification and independent safety checks. It also gave us a better understanding of the market and other applications. When we started, we talked mostly about smaller gas turbines, and we had some interest in the aviation field. Shell GameChanger helped us focus on the right applications to start with – the easiest and the most profitable applications for our system.

Since the GameChanger programme, we have had joint discussions with Shell and turbine OEMs. We have recently started a new collaboration and a feasibility study for retrofitting our technology on a 10-MW turbine system.

What are your next steps in developing the technology or the business?

The next steps for us to focus on would be signing a collaboration agreement with an OEM for development and licensing of the technology. Once we have that agreement, there may be opportunities to explore testing within Shell’s operational environments, subject to further discussions.