China's hydrogen industry development ushered in a window period

"Pure hydrogen or hydrogen-doped pipeline transportation is the last kilometer to connect hydrogen production and hydrogen use." Li Guohui said that the distribution of hydrogen energy resources in China is very uneven, hydrogen energy resources are mainly distributed in refining and chemical enterprises, scenery power generation and natural gas resources rich in the northwest, northeast, central and western regions. The consumer market is mainly concentrated in the eastern region. In the near future, hydrogen energy storage and transportation mainly serve short-distance transportation in the nearby area, and the future demand for medium and long distance storage and transportation is large.

Ouyang Minggao said that storage and transportation is still the weak link in the hydrogen energy full technology chain, although there are various technological innovations, but the truly disruptive technology that can land has not yet appeared.

"At present, China has built a certain scale of pure hydrogen pipeline up to 3, less than 100 kilometers, almost all for the purpose of refining chemical hydrogen." There are only a few experiments on hydrogen blending platforms for long-distance mixed transport of natural gas." Li Guohui said.

"By 2050, if our hydrogen energy storage and transportation scale reaches 70 million tons, about half of which will need pipelines to transport, that is, 35 million tons, which is equivalent to the scale of our current natural gas pipelines, which may require pipeline mileage between 150,000 kilometers and 200,000 kilometers." Li Guohui predicted.

"It is urgent to speed up the capacity building of hydrogen storage and transportation equipment development." Li Xiang, a researcher at the China Special Equipment Testing and Research Institute, said that China's core hydrogen storage and transportation equipment capacity construction is lacking, and there are many challenges in hydrogen storage and transportation equipment materials, design and manufacturing, safety status monitoring and evaluation.

In terms of fuel cell vehicle technology of public concern, Chen Wenmiao said that the current cost of using fuel cells and hydrogen energy is still high, and the relevant power devices still exist the actual situation of "expensive to buy and expensive to use."

Zhang Jinhua, executive vice president and Secretary general of the China Society of Automotive Engineering, believes that compared with the global leading level, China's fuel cell vehicle technology as a whole still has a large gap, especially in the key core components and material devices, such as carbon paper, catalyst, proton exchange membrane, carbon fiber materials, hydrogenation equipment, related pipe and valve parts and other external dependence is high. The level of key technologies such as large-scale energy saving hydrogen production technology and high reliability, especially 70 mpa hydrogenation technology, still needs to be improved.

It is necessary to work together across the border to overcome shortcomings

According to incomplete statistics, more than 30 countries in the world have issued hydrogen energy-related strategies, and major economies such as Europe, the United States, Japan and South Korea have taken green hydrogen as a long-term development strategy and formulated corresponding policies.

In 2022, China issued the Medium and Long-Term Plan for the Development of Hydrogen energy Industry (2021-2035). According to the plan, by 2025, China will initially establish a hydrogen energy supply system based on industrial by-production hydrogen and renewable energy hydrogen production. By 2030, a relatively complete hydrogen industry technology innovation system, clean energy hydrogen production and supply system will be formed. By 2035, a hydrogen energy industrial system will be formed to build a multi-component hydrogen energy application ecology covering transportation, energy storage, industry and other fields.

"China's hydrogen energy industry has ushered in a window period, which is also a window period for the world's hydrogen energy industry." Experts believe that under the vision of carbon neutrality, green low-carbon and sustainable development has become a consensus of global development, and green hydrogen has become the focus of hydrogen industry development.

Li Guohui said that the hydrogen energy industry layout has been all over the country, and 30 provinces have written hydrogen energy into the "14th Five-Year Plan" development plan. However, there are also some areas that need to be improved and perfected at the market level and technical level.

"We should strengthen technological research in weak links and improve the overall technical level of the industry." Zhang Jinhua said that the cultivation of hydrogen energy and fuel cell industry is a complex system project of great significance, its technical innovation is difficult, the energy supply system reshaping challenges, the task is very difficult, the need for a high degree of coordination and joint promotion of multiple parties.