A few days ago, Shanghai issued a notice on several policies to support the development of the fuel cell vehicle industry in the city, pointing out that by the end of 2025, the municipal finance will be funded in accordance with the 1:1 ratio of the national fuel cell vehicle demonstration central financial incentive fund, focusing on supporting vehicle demonstration applications.
For the fuel cell system, stack, membrane electrode, bipolar plate and other core components used by the vehicle, the city will give financial incentives to the relevant vehicle manufacturers. Among them, if the relevant vehicles obtain the national comprehensive assessment reward points, the city will give rewards according to 200,000 yuan per 1 point, 150,000 yuan will be arranged by the pooled funds, and 50,000 yuan will be arranged in the district where the fuel cell system production enterprise is located.
In simple terms, the introduction of the policy means that Shanghai will subsidize the fuel cell vehicle industry.
Coincidentally, on November 7, the CPC Central Committee and the State Council issued opinions on deepening the battle against pollution. The opinions pointed out that we should continue to fight a tough battle against diesel truck pollution. Deeply implement the clean diesel vehicle (machine) action, basically eliminate the national third and below emission standard vehicles, promote the demonstration and application of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, and orderly promote clean energy vehicles.
If Shanghai's support for the development of fuel cells is an example, then the opinion issued by the CPC Central Committee and the State Council means that fuel cells will be favorable in policy. Why? Electric cars are the most popular time, but they have been poured a lot of cold water. Instead, the fuel cell that has been swallowed warmly suddenly heated up?
Some people say that Japan and South Korea are engaged in hydrogen fuel cells, so China will follow the trend, and the United States and Europe will not follow the trend. But is that really the case? When China first developed new energy, the United States and Europe did not engage in it, but the facts proved that new energy is the mainstream of the times, and it is precisely because of this foresight that China has a rare leading edge in the automobile market.
The same is true of the development of fuel cells. At present, there are three things that can be charged quickly and can be commercialized: supercapacitors, vanadium batteries, and hydrogen fuel cells. Among them, the super capacitor is large, expensive, toxic, and too low, and it is most suitable for large vehicles such as buses and forklifts, and does not have the conditions for the popularization of family cars. Vanadium batteries are larger, more expensive, and more toxic, and can be used by steamships and wind/solar power plant energy storage stations. In the end, only hydrogen fuel cells remain.
Hydrogen fuel cell, the volume is suitable, charging can be faster than refueling, charging can run a thousand kilometers at a time, simply perfect. And hydrogen can be produced almost everywhere, can be consumed everywhere, is a real clean energy. It can be said that no matter from which aspect, hydrogen fuel cells are the best direction for the development of new energy. So, is there really no short board for hydrogen fuel cells? In fact, there are, and there are many of them, and the difficulty is not low, otherwise it would not be popular.
First, there is the issue of transportation. Gas-hydrogen trailers have cost advantages in transportation within 300 kilometers, medium and long-distance transportation, liquid hydrogen is dominant, and the cost advantage of liquid hydrogen after 400 kilometers is greater than that of pipeline transportation. For example, the domestic wind/solar power station and the southwest hydropower base are used to produce hydrogen energy, even if the price of cabbage is out of the factory, it will not be able to pull the domestic first-tier cities, even if it is the nearest second-tier cities.
This problem actually comes down to the preservation of hydrogen. Hydrogen is very reactive, extremely poor stability, and prone to combustion and explosion after leakage. And as the first element on the periodic table, the atomic radius of hydrogen is very small, and hydrogen can pass through most of the micropores that are invisible to the naked eye. Not only that, under high temperature and high pressure, hydrogen can even pass through very thick steel plates.
This has led to a new question – popular acceptance. For example, oil, as long as the heat source is avoided, it can ensure safety, so although it is dangerous, it is easy to be accepted because of its stability problems. However, the instability of hydrogen energy makes it difficult to be accepted, which leads to people not only not accepting hydrogen energy models, but also difficult to accept the existence of hydrogen refueling stations. Also, for example, if you plan to build a hydrogen refueling station across the street from your house tomorrow, can you agree?
Therefore, there are really many problems facing hydrogen fuel cells, and their difficulties on the road of commercial application, the acceptance and popularity of the public, as well as the transportation and storage problems, all of which affect the development of hydrogen fuel cells.
From the current point of view, hydrogen fuel cells are really difficult to popularize, but this does not prevent it from becoming the next development of new energy development. Just like the original development of electric vehicles, at that time people thought that electric vehicles were IQ taxes, although the continuous price reductions later confirmed this from the side. But now, whether it is a policy or a global development trend, it confirms that the development of new energy is unstoppable.
Similarly, although as of the beginning of this year, the number of hydrogen energy vehicles in the world is less than 40,000; although the development of hydrogen fuel cells has been difficult so far. However, on the basis of the existing development, unless there is a great breakthrough in supercapacitors or vanadium batteries, the development of hydrogen fuel cells will be the top priority of new energy development, at least in the automotive field.
It is true that fuel cells are currently due to their high price, and it will take time to achieve a sustainable business model, but with the strong support of the government and the continuous rise of our manufacturing power, these new technologies will soon be more widely applied in the market and achieve economies of scale.
In particular, at present, whether it is lithium iron phosphate batteries or ternary lithium batteries, they are limited by multiple dimensions such as materials and energy, which actually shows the inevitability of the development of hydrogen fuel cells from the side. Compared with the power batteries commonly used on the market, the use of hydrogen fuel cells will not have the problem of "whether the power generation is environmentally friendly", nor will it be affected by the large contraction of the endurance caused by the low temperature environment.
Moreover, the current development of hydrogen energy is not only China, Japan and South Korea. From the extranet data, it can be seen that a total of 553 hydrogen refueling stations around the world are now in operation. Seven more hydrogen refueling stations were added in the first few weeks of this year, and 225 more hydrogen refueling stations have specific construction plans. There are a total of 200 hydrogen refueling stations in Europe, of which 100 are located in Germany. France has the second largest number in Europe, with 34 hydrogen refueling stations and 38 hydrogen refueling stations under construction.
There are 275 hydrogen refueling stations in Asia, 142 in Japan and 60 in South Korea. Almost all of the 69 Chinese hydrogen refueling stations in the database are used to refuel bus or truck fleets. Most of the 75 hydrogen refueling stations in North America are still located in California (49). California also added 4 new hydrogen refueling stations in 2020, and the number of planned dedicated hydrogen refueling stations has also increased significantly to 43.
It can be seen that in the field of developing hydrogen energy, China is not following the trend, but following the trend and imperative.