What Is The Future Energy Prospect Of Hydrogen Industry?

It is not only water, but also hydrogen, which is the ultimate energy.

Starting from the endless water, the products are only energy and clean water. Hydrogen seems to be in line with the perfect imagination of human beings for clean energy.

Just as fossil energy is known as the sunset industry, hydrogen has become a recognized energy source of the future. From Europe to East Asia, to the Middle East and North Africa, from Beijing Tianjin Hebei, Yangtze River Delta to Pearl River Delta, the boom of hydrogen energy development is sweeping every corner of the world.

The recent wave of hydrogen speculation in A-share market shows investors' ardent hope for the hydrogen energy industry. However, the reality of the hydrogen industry is much more profound than the full-fledged imagination of the future. With the strong support of local policies, many technical problems still need to be solved; Besides going to the emerging passenger electric vehicle market, heavy trucks, shipping and metallurgy may be his better destination.

In any case, all walks of life seem to have seen the broad prospects of hydrogen energy industry after technological leapfrogging, and a new reform of energy industry may come in the near future. No one wants to miss the train to the future.

Policies emerge frequently, outlining the future imagination

Since 2018, the introduction of local hydrogen energy industry development plan will always cause market turmoil. Some of these plans directly name the hydrogen industry, while others take the name of fuel cell industry.

In 2019, hydrogen energy was listed in the government work report for the first time, and the national strategic plan for the development of hydrogen energy industry in the next year was proposed. During this period, a number of national ministries and commissions successively issued the notice of fuel cell vehicle demonstration and application, and Beijing, Guangdong, Shandong, Hebei and other places successively issued industrial planning or promoted the construction of demonstration zones, and hydrogen energy subsidy policies poured in one after another.

At present, in addition to the provincial hydrogen industry development plan, many cities have also issued the same type of industrial support measures, hoping to cultivate hydrogen energy industrial clusters with large-scale output value, and birth of industrial chain leading enterprises with domestic and even international influence. With the continuous heating up of the hydrogen energy industry, many large-scale central enterprises and private enterprises in the field of industrial energy are also stepping into the hydrogen energy industry.

From the perspective of local planning, the vision of output value of 10 billion billion at any time outlines a full industrial future. China hydrogen industry alliance predicts that the output value of China's hydrogen industry will reach 1 trillion yuan by 2025; By 2050, China's hydrogen production capacity will be close to 60 million tons, and carbon dioxide emission reduction will be about 700 million tons. Hydrogen energy accounts for more than 10% of China's terminal energy system, and the annual industrial output value will reach 12 trillion yuan, becoming a new growth pole leading economic development.

The global community shows the same enthusiasm for the industrial prospect of "future energy".

In June 2020, the European Commission issued the "climate neutral European Hydrogen strategy", which is prepared to vigorously promote the development of hydrogen energy, especially the renewable energy hydrogen production industry, and the wide application of hydrogen energy. With more and more attention being paid to the issue of climate change, hydrogen energy has become one of the important paths for economic restructuring and coping with climate change.

At present, in addition to Europe, the United States, South Korea, China, Japan and other countries have laid out the hydrogen energy industry, and started the accumulation of basic technology and the attempt of commercialization path. The resource rich countries in the oil and gas era do not want to follow the decline of fossil energy.

As a traditional oil and gas producing country, Saudi Arabia has actively deployed hydrogen energy industry in recent years. In April, Saudi Arabia spent $110 billion to develop its own gas fields and use it to make hydrogen. In addition, Saudi Arabia also hopes to make good use of its vast land, wind and solar energy resources to start the industrial journey of hydrogen production from renewable energy.

In addition to Saudi Arabia, Dubai and Oman have shown interest in the hydrogen industry. In remote north Africa, big companies from Europe have been hoping to combine cheap renewable energy and hydrogen to contribute to the economic transformation of the entire European Union.

Orthopedic reality under technical difficulties

Since August, the A-share hydrogen concept plate has been in hot demand, becoming one of the few active topics in the near future. However, after the stock price soared, the attention letter issued by the supervision came as scheduled, and the listed companies also hastened to clarify.

The hydrogen energy business of the hot plate companies with excellent stock price performance is not mature or accounts for a small proportion, and some companies even have no investment in hydrogen fuel cell business. On the contrary, Weichai Power (000338. SZ) and yihuatong-u (688339. SH), which have long laid out hydrogen energy industry, are still cautiously planning and expanding related businesses.

Compared with the hype in the stock market, the reality is much more perceptive. At present, there is no typical leading company of hydrogen energy or hydrogen fuel cell industry in China, and the whole industry is still in the exploratory stage. Hydrogen fuel cell is only one of the key exploration directions of many enterprises.

Zhang Wei of the equipment industry development center of the Ministry of industry and information technology pointed out that at present, the demonstration operation in the Pearl River Delta, the Yangtze River Delta and Beijing Tianjin Hebei region has achieved initial results under the guidance and support of the policy. However, the domestic fuel cell industry is still facing many difficulties, such as relatively weak technical foundation, imperfect infrastructure construction and policies, regulations and standards.

At present, Japan, South Korea, Europe and the United States and other traditional hydrogen energy countries have mastered the core technology from basic materials to system integration and terminal application, forming a relatively complete fuel cell vehicle supply chain system; After realizing industrialization in a real sense, the countries and regions mentioned above are trying to find the best cost commercialization system.

Compared with foreign counterparts, China's hydrogen industry does not occupy an advantage in the competition. At present, there is still a big gap with foreign advanced level in hydrogenation machine and hydrogen compressor, membrane electrode spraying equipment, circulation pump, catalyst and other key parts.

Despite repeated hot speculation, problems such as immature related technologies, high cost of hydrogen for hydrogen production, and imperfect industrial chain and supporting facilities have restricted the scale development prospects of the whole industry.

Compared with a promising electric vehicle market, the sense of existence of the fuel cell vehicle market is still very low. According to the data released by the China Automobile Association, the production and sales of domestic pure electric vehicles from January to July this year reached 1.26 million and 1.227 million respectively, with growth rates of 2.2 times; The growth rate of fuel cell vehicle production and sales is close to 50%, but the actual number is only 664 and 675, which is more than an order of magnitude lower than that of electric vehicles.

According to the data provided by China prospective industry research institute, by the end of March 2021, China has jointly built 131 hydrogenation stations, of which 108 have been put into operation; In addition, 65 are under construction and 122 are under planning.

Meanwhile, according to the data of China electric vehicle charging infrastructure promotion alliance, by the end of July 2021, the number of public charging piles reported by member enterprises of the alliance was 950000. In the fuel vehicle market, there are about 100000 gas stations in China.

It's not easy for the hydrogen car industry to compete directly with electric vehicles, but it has more than one option. In addition, the source of clean and pollution-free hydrogen is not necessarily environmental protection.

Where does hydrogen come from

According to different sources, hydrogen can be divided into gray hydrogen, blue hydrogen and green hydrogen. Hydrogen produced from renewable energy sources is called green hydrogen, and hydrogen produced by fossil fuels through carbon capture technology is called blue hydrogen.

Ash hydrogen is produced from fossil fuels, which has low cost, but has the highest carbon emission, and is also the main source of hydrogen at present. Fossil energy companies hope to use natural gas resources, combined with CCUs (carbon capture, collection and Utilization Technology) to produce blue hydrogen.

The development of hydrogen industry in the future depends on whether renewable energy can be used on a large scale and cheaply enough. According to the current regional distribution of renewable energy and power consumption in China, hydrogen energy is expected to become an efficient energy carrier for renewable energy storage and transfer in the three north regions of China.

It is still difficult to realize it. Although the conversion efficiency of hydrogen fuel cells is high, the cost of hydrogen production from clean energy is still high; In addition, the technical difficulties of hydrogen storage and transportation still need to be solved.

Although hydrogen fuel cell vehicles have attracted much attention, compared with the passenger car market, buses, logistics vehicles and heavy trucks will be more convenient for hydrogen energy development.

Roland Berger management consulting pointed out that the applicable scenarios of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are mainly divided into three categories: one is the fixed route, which is convenient for the construction of supporting hydrogenation infrastructure, and the relatively closed and fixed route scenarios such as mines, ports and logistics parks are the main ones; The second category is medium and long-distance trunk lines, and the operating mileage exceeds the upper limit of pure electric endurance; Finally, in the case of high load, due to the limited space for battery density improvement of pure electric vehicle, the battery weight of heavy truck matching certain mileage must be too large, so the advantages of hydrogen fuel cell compared with pure electric vehicle will be further enlarged.

In an interview with the 21st century economic report and other media, BP chief economist Dai Sipan said that hydrogen energy will be applied to vehicles that are difficult to electrify, and long-distance heavy trucks will take advantage of hydrogen energy.

Roland Berger believes that the hydrogen fuel cell industry has entered a critical period of development and energy storage of market technology and resource.

In addition to vehicles, in the wave of energy transformation, foreign shipping giants are also facing increasing pressure to reduce emissions. Hydrogen fuel engine may become one of the important options for carbon emission reduction in the shipping industry. In June 2020, the Ministry of transport issued the development outline of inland river shipping, which also proposed to explore the development of pure electric power, fuel cell and other power ships, and to study and promote the application of solar energy, wind energy and hydrogen energy in the industry.

For the iron and steel industry, blast furnace steelmaking process will naturally produce a lot of carbon dioxide. Facing the pressure of energy conservation and emission reduction of the whole industry, hydrogen energy may become an important savior of the industry. At present, China Baowu, ThyssenKrupp, ArcelorMittal and other domestic and foreign steel enterprises have begun to try and research hydrogen energy.

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