Solar steam reforming of natural gas integrated with a gas turbine power plant

• Gas turbine power plant repowering by solar energy.
• Solar thermochemical process for solar energy conversion.
• Hybrid power plant for solar energy conversion and peak demand cover.
• Use of natural gas pipeline as an energy smart grid.

This paper shows a hybrid power plant wherein solar steam reforming of natural gas and a steam injected gas turbine power plant are integrated for solar syngas production and use. The gas turbine is fed by a mixture of natural gas and solar syngas (mainly composed of hydrogen and water steam) from mid-low temperature steam reforming reaction whose heat duty is supplied by a parabolic trough Concentrating Solar Power plant.A comparison is made between a traditional steam injected gas turbine and the proposed solution to underline the improvements introduced by the integration with solar steam reforming of the natural gas process.The paper also shows how solar syngas can be considered as an energy vector consequent to solar energy conversion effectiveness and the natural gas pipeline as a storage unit, thus accomplishing the idea of a smart energy grid.