Photo taken with a drone shows workers examining five newly introduced hydrogen-powered heavy-duty trucks in the Tangshan Haigang Economic Development Zone of Tangshan, north China's Hebei Province, April 14, 2021. (Xinhua/Yang Shiyao)
BEIJING, June 18 (Xinhua) -- Fueled by a series of supporting measures, China's hydrogen energy market experienced thriving growth since the beginning of this year.
Recently, five Chinese government departments including the Ministry of Finance (MOF) have issued a notice to involve some regions like Beijing, Shanghai, Guangdong, Hebei and Henan into the plan of developing demonstrative city clusters of fuel cell vehicles.
With the evolvement of hydrogen energy industry, the program of demonstrative city clusters will be implemented at a faster pace.
According to some industry insiders, large enterprises have extended their business to hydrogen energy sector that expedited the industry reshuffle. Those leading enterprises with core technology advantage will be barged to the forefront. Meanwhile, the policies of carbon emission peak and carbon neutrality may imply a development opportunity for the hydrogen-fueled heavy-duty truck market.
-- Preferential policies for demonstrative cities to be finalized soon
Last September, the MOF, Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, Ministry of Science and Technology, National Development and Reform Commission and National Energy Administration jointly issued the notice on demonstrative application of fuel cell vehicles. The approach of "replacing subsidy by award" is adopted during the four-year tentative demonstrative period that the qualified demonstrative city clusters will be awarded upon the implementation of the program.
The five government departments required the five candidate regions namely Beijing, Shanghai, Guangdong, Hebei and Henan to further revise and polish their implementing plans in accordance with the requirements of expert review, which were submitted based on procedures prior to the end of this April. Some industry insiders commented that the city clusters of hydrogen energy demonstrative application will have a significant impact on the industry, and the relevant list of qualifiers will be unveiled soon.
Under the demonstration policy, based on the leading enterprises and oriented at clients' demand, the relevant enterprises can be organized to cultivate an industry chain. As a result, quite a few entities on the industry chain of hydrogen fuel cell are included in the candidate city clusters.
For example, the accelerated layout of hydrogen energy industry in northeast China's Jilin Province is actively boosted by Jilin Electric Power Co., Ltd. which is a listed company under State Power Investment Corporation Limited (SPIC). The company vigorously develops renewable energy like wind power and PV power, gives priority to the development of clean coal-fired power generation and actively explores the heat production market as well as new business models such as integrated smart energy, hydrogen energy and energy storage. The company has made it clear to support the province's application for a demonstrative city cluster of fuel cell vehicles together with other enterprises like China FAW Group Corporation.
Leading enterprises play a significant role in promoting the application by local government and future development, said by Ouyang Xun, chairman of NOWOGEN. On the one hand, leading enterprises help consolidate the technology and cost advantages in the locality to win the chance of demonstration. On the other hand, leading enterprises gain more contracts from the demonstrative city clusters.
-- Enterprises keep close eye on developing hydrogen energy businesses
Considering Chinese authorities' intensive support and a trillion-yuan-level market, various investors and enterprises expanded their presence in the hydrogen energy sector including quite a number of crossover competitors.
Li Zhenguo, president of LONGi Green Energy Technology Co., Ltd. believed that hydrogen energy must be introduced to achieve real decarbonization in many fields. In April, LONGi Group announced to develop "hydrogen production by PV". Industry insiders noted that more market players become interested in the hydrogen energy industry while many others are looking for potential investment programs.
Great Wall Motor announced that it will invest another 3 billion yuan in hydrogen energy research and development.
China Petrochemical Corporation stated to take hydrogen energy as the primary direction of the corporate new energy business that plans to build 1,000 hydrogen fueling stations or oil-hydrogen hybrid stations during the 14th Five-Year Plan period, thus building itself into the biggest hydrogen energy company in China.
Mentioning investors' passion for the hydrogen energy industry, Zhao Xiaoli, vice president of strategic investment department of Vision Group, said that with the access of giant enterprises in possession of core elements like energy, whole equipment and scenario, the industrial integration and reshuffling have started.
-- Multi-scenario hydrogen-fueled heavy trucks poised to boom
Impelled by both policy and market, the hydrogen-fueled heavy-duty truck presents a new trend of hydrogen energy development.
The first batch of hydrogen-fueled heavy-duty trucks in east China's Shandong Province were fully operational in May 2021. Equipped with the 162kW hydrogen fuel cell engines manufactured by Weichai Power, the heavy-duty trucks passed the extreme cold test in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region this January. Beiben Trucks Group also announced to take advantage of the brand strength and advanced technology of Jilin Electric Power on the industry chain to develop hydrogen-fueled heavy-duty trucks, minimize the costs and realize coordinated industry development.
In terms of application scenarios, hydrogen-fueled heavy-duty trucks are mostly used in factories and industry parks. the Tangshan Haigang Economic Development Zone of Tangshan, north China's Hebei Province, has deployed five hydrogen-fueled heavy-duty trucks to deal with port logistics and short-distance haulage of commodities.
The heavy-duty trucks delivered are mostly put in the operation of steel mills, ports and mines, Ouyang said, adding that under the carbon emission peak and carbon neutrality targets, a few sectors with high energy consumption require electrification, which is conductive to the popularization of hydrogen-fueled heavy-duty trucks and the transformation of electric vehicle market into the stage of fuel cell heavy-duty trucks.
According to Zhao, though the present orders are limited, the hydrogen-fueled heavy-duty truck market has a huge potential of growth.
Some experts pointed out that with the release of the "China VI" vehicle emission standards of heavy-duty trucks, the transition to new energy is imminent where the hydrogen-fueled heavy-duty truck will be one of the development directions.
The next 5 to 10 years will be a critical period to develop fuel cell heavy-duty trucks. (Edited by Yang Yifan with Xinhua Silk Road, yangyifan@xinhua.org)
A single purchase
