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Preliminary Comparison of Ammonia- and Natural Gas-Fueled Micro-Gas Turbine Systems in Heat-Driven CHP for a Small Residential Community

Abstract

This research considers a preliminary comparative technical evaluation of two micro-gas turbine (MGT) systems in combined heat and power (CHP) mode (100 kWe), aimed at supplying heat to a residential community of 15 average-sized buildings located in Central Europe over a year. Two systems were modelled in Ebsilon 15 software: a natural gas case (benchmark) and an ammonia-fueled case, both based on the same on-design parameters. Off-design simulations evaluated performance over variable ambient temperatures and loads. Idealized, unrecuperated cycles were adopted to isolate the thermodynamic impact of the fuel switch under complete combustion assumption. Under these assumptions, the study shows that the ammonia system produces more electrical energy and less excess heat, yielding marginally higher electrical efficiency and EUF (26.05% and 77.63%) than the natural gas system (24.59% and 77.55%), highlighting ammonia’s utilization potential in such a context. Future research should target validating ammonia combustion and emission profiles across the turbine load range, and updating the thermodynamic model with a recuperator and SCR accounting for realistic pressure losses.
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Category

Academic article

Language

English

Author(s)

  • Mateusz Proniewicz
  • Karolina Petela
  • Christine Mounaïm-Rousselle
  • Mirko R. Bothien
  • Andrea Gruber
  • Yong Fan
  • Minhyeok Lee
  • Andrzej Szlęk

Affiliation

  • SINTEF Energy Research / Termisk energi
  • University of Orléans ESPEO
  • Silesian University of Technology
  • Zurich University of Applied Sciences
  • The University of Tokyo
  • National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology

Date

01.08.2025

Year

2025

Published in

Energies

Volume

18

Issue

15

View this publication at Norwegian Research Information Repository