A gas-fired peaker power plant in New Jersey that provides electricity to New York City at times of need will switch at least one of its ten turbines to run on green hydrogen, according to the developers of the $150m-plus project.

TigerGenCo, a subsidiary of Morgan Stanley Infrastructure Partners, which operates the 644MW Bayonne Energy Center, says the move will reduce greenhouse gas emissions at the site, while continuing to probide reliable electricity supply to the New York metro area.

US/Indian manufacturer Ohmium will supply 120MW of its interlocking PEM electrolysers, which will be used to produce green hydrogen from renewable energy on site or nearby, with the H2 stored for later combustion in converted gas turbines.

The project developer, NovoHydrogen, says the electrolysers could be operational in 2025, but that the remaining turbines would continue burning fossil gas.

“Green hydrogen offers a tremendous opportunity to utilize current gas-powered energy generating assets to provide 100% 24/7 dispatchable clean power,” said NovoHydrogen CEO Matt McMonagle. “We are tremendously excited to work on this innovative project to show what can be done.”

Green hydrogen has long been touted as a potential long-term method of storing renewable energy and using it at a later date, such as when the wind is not blowing and the sun is not shining, but it is not the most efficient method.

The round-trip efficiency is said to be less than 40% — ie, for every 100kWh of renewable energy used to make the green H2, less than 40kWh of electricity would be produced by the turbine burning that H2.

None of the three companies have said where the renewable energy for the project would come from, how the hydrogen would be stored, the capacity of the turbines involved, or when the existing gas turbines would be converted to run on H2.