Japanese gas supplier Tokyo Gas Co. Ltd. plans to bring green hydrogen technology to the Philippines, its local partner First Gen Corp. said.
“Tokyo Gas is doing a lot of studies on hydrogen, e-methane they call it. I think they want to bring that technology here as well,” First Gen chairman Federico Lopez said in a recent interview. Green hydrogen is fuel created from renewable energy.
Tokyo Gas owns a 20-percent stake in FGen LNG Corp., its joint venture with First Gen.
FGen LNG owns an interim offshore liquefied natural gas terminal project in Batangas City which is eyed for completion this year.
“That’s the beauty [of it]. Eventually, as that tech becomes viable, it can even be used to re-power your nat gas [natural gas] plants. Many of the nat gas-fired plants we’re putting in are capable of firing on blended with hydrogen, if it were available today,” Lopez said.
He said combined cycle gas turbine power plants could eventually run on hydrogen if it is commercially available.
“That’s part of our perspective. That’s why we think CCGT plants are probably the best complement for this transition,” Lopez said.
He said hydrogen as a fuel is still expensive, but he is optimistic that “things will move very fast”, especially with the US Inflation Reduction Act that may spur more capital to innovate and speed up innovations in many green technologies.
Lopez said Tokyo Gas may also come in once demand justifies a need for an offshore LNG terminal.
“We are still at that stage of interim offshore terminal…We watch the demand. The moment more is needed, we are going to start building the onshore terminal,” Lopez said.
He said the original plan was to build an onshore terminal but they shifted to an interim offshore because it is faster and cheaper to build.
“We also want to make sure that we give priority if there’s Malampaya or if there’s more Malampaya, we sort of give that priority and adjust our volumes for import as we move forward,” Lopez said.
He said offshore LNG terminal was expected to be completed by March, while the floating storage regasification unit or vessel would come by June or July.
“That’s still the target. All of that is still very early, relative to our Malampaya,” Lopez said.
First Gen is a power generation company of the Lopez Group and one of the largest natural gas consumers in the country.
