Page 9 - AsiaElec Week 38 2021

AsiaElec HYDROGEN AsiaElec

Chinese hydrogen interests call for

100 GW of green hydrogen by 2030

CHINA CHINA’S hydrogen industry has urged the In particular, the government should encour-
government to set a target of 100 GW of green age the use of green hydrogen in major projects
hydrogen electrolyser capacity by 2030. such as the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics and
The China Hydrogen Alliance (CHA), which fuel-cell vehicle demonstration city clusters.
operates under government oversight, said in a Hydrogen is widely viewed as vital to China’s
position paper called the Renewable Hydrogen drive to decarbonise its economy by 2060. China
100 Initiative that it wanted Beijing to “strive” to is aiming to be carbon neutral by 2060, and for
install 100 GW by 2030. CO2 emissions to peak by 2030 at the latest.
The CHA said on its website that it is sup- For example, in August China revealed plans
ported and supervised by various government to use solar and wind to produce 66,900 tonnes
ministries, so it is credible that setting such a per year (tpy) of green hydrogen in the cities of
huge target is close to government policy. Ordos and Baotou in Inner Mongolia.
At present, there are just 76 MW of green The plants could be up and running by 2023
hydrogen electrolysers in the world, according to and would be able to avoid about 21mn gallons
the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) Hydro- (80mn litres) of gasoline for fossil fuel vehicles
gen Project Database. per year, China’s Hydrogen Energy Industry Pro-
Meanwhile, BloombergNEF said that global motion Association said.
green electrolyser manufacturing capacity could Meanwhile, Chinese state-controlled oil
only reach 3.1 GW per year by the end of 2021. giant Sinopec said it would launch its first green
This makes the 100-GW target seem hydrogen project, involving a 270-MW solar
extremely ambitious, but the CHA’s close gov- plant and a 50-MW wind farm, in the Inner
ernment links mean that it is entirely possible Mongolia region in 2022.
that China could adopt such a target. The company also said it will focus on fossil
The government is currently in the process fuel-based hydrogen, or grey hydrogen, output
of drawing up a new national hydrogen strategy. over the next five years and set up 1,000 hydro-
The government could be testing the reaction to gen filling stations across the country as part of
this document to help guide its policymaking. its goal to be carbon neutral by 2050.
The CHA said in its paper that it wanted the Sinopec currently owns a hydrogen produc-
100-GW target as part of wider efforts to develop tion capacity of 3.5mn tpy and is the country’s
a new power system. largest hydrogen producer with a 14% market
It urged the government to carry out more share, Reuters reported.
research into technology innovation and to pro- The output value of the country’s hydrogen
mote cost reductions in green H2. industry is forecast at 1 trillion yuan ($154bn)
It also urged Beijing to create a single, unified in five years’ time, China Hydrogen Alliance
green hydrogen market. said, and it could reach 12 times that by 2050,

Week 38 22•September•2022 www. NEWSBASE .com P9