China accelerates deployment of hydrogen energy

More than 600 hydrogen-powered vehicles will be in operation during the Beijing 2022 Olympic Winter Games in Zhangjiakou City, north China's Hebei Province.

Late last month, the China Petrochemical Corporation (Sinopec Group) launched a 20,000-tonnes-per-year green hydrogen plant in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.

As green hydrogen is seen as a clean energy source for the future, China is accelerating its hydrogen energy deployment across the country.

Hydrogen emits only water when burned, but creating it can be carbon-intensive. Hydrogen can be gray, blue or green, depending on its production method. Green hydrogen is the only type produced in a climate-neutral manner, meaning it could play a vital role in global efforts to reduce emissions.

The China Hydrogen Alliance estimates that the scale of China's hydrogen energy market will reach 43 million tonnes by 2030. Green hydrogen will increase from 1 percent of energy in 2019 to 10 percent, and the market scale will increase nearly 30 times.

The Chinese government has announced it will support the development of the hydrogen energy industry through several industrial policies. The country's annual government work report mentioned hydrogen energy for the first time in 2019, promoting the construction of related facilities like hydrogen stations.

In a guideline released in October, the Communist Party of China Central Committee and the State Council said the "whole chain" development of hydrogen energy should be promoted, from production and storage to transmission and use.

Many local governments have included hydrogen energy in their development blueprints.

In August, the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Economy and Information Technology said the capital city plans to home five to eight hydrogen energy enterprises with international influence by 2023. The industrial scale of hydrogen energy in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region is expected to reach 50 billion yuan (about 7.85 billion U.S. dollars) and reduce carbon emissions by 1 million tonnes.

Shanghai plans to have nearly 100 hydrogen stations and 10,000 vehicles powered by hydrogen fuel cells by 2023. Guangdong has proposed the promotion of the large-scale application of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles and the accelerated construction of hydrogen refueling stations, with 300 hydrogen stations planned for the Pearl River Delta and its coastal economic belt.

According to the White Paper 2020 on China's Hydrogen Energy and Fuel Cell Industry, China's hydrogen production capacity is about 41 million tonnes per year. The country's actual output is about 33.42 million tonnes, making it the top hydrogen-producing country in the world.

The China Hydrogen Energy Alliance predicts that by 2050, hydrogen energy will account for more than 10 percent of China's energy system, and the annual output value of the industrial chain will reach 12 trillion yuan.

Ye Siyu, chief technology officer of SinoHyKey Technology Company Limited., said that some materials and components related to hydrogen energy continue to rely on imports. Ye's company was the first in China to produce a membrane electrode assembly (MEA), an assembled stack of proton-exchange membranes, a catalyst and flat plate electrodes used in hydrogen fuel cells. He said his company has to import the components needed to produce MEAs, such as proton-exchange membranes.

But the situation is changing. Last year, the Hydrogen Energy Co., Ltd., under the State Power Investment Corporation, invested 7 billion yuan in the development of fuel cell core components. A proton-exchange membrane production line recently went into operation in Wuhan, the capital of central China's Hubei Province.