This article is divided into the following four parts:
1. Progress of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles
2. Whether hydrogen fuel cell vehicles have reached the critical point of large-scale commercial use
3. Why should the state push hydrogen fuel cell vehicles
4. Take stock of each hot concept stock
If you want to see Part 4, you can just pull it down.
preface
Recently hydrogen energy is particularly hot. Whether it is a fried concept or not.
Meta-cosmic fire, good villain is a new term. Is hydrogen a new term? No. Newly invented energy? It's decades old.
Why wasn't it fire before, now fire.
An important reason is that the electric vehicle track is on fire, the target is already very expensive, and the fantasy is that hydrogen can replicate the popularity of electric vehicles. It's like speculating in China, the house price has risen to the sky, and then go to Vietnam to speculate. This is the time machine model used by Munger, Son Zhengyi and others. To go to Vietnam to speculate in a house is not to treat Vietnam as China 20 years ago, imagine that time will go back 20 years, and then speculate in the house.
The success of the time machine model presupposes that the two investment targets are very similar.
Take Vietnamese house speculation as an example, I don't know if the people who went to Vietnam to speculate in the early days made money, but it is certainly difficult to make money now, Ho Chi Minh City house prices have reached 1/4 of Shanghai (fortunately, Shanghai house prices rose a wave last year, saving some face), but the GDP is only 1/10 of Shanghai. Ho Chi Minh City Metro Line 1, which started construction in 2010, has not yet opened.
Is the hydrogen energy track similar to the electric vehicle track of the past, and if so, similar to the electric vehicle track of which period? 5 years ago, 10 years ago or 20 years ago. Five years ago, the electric car track was about to explode; 20 years ago, the front wave died on the beach.
Contrary to the public's impression of "new energy", hydrogen energy has a long history. Not to mention the industrial application, the application of the car alone has a history of 20 years (at present, the earliest domestic research is SAIC, and in 2001, the joint venture with GM launched the "Phoenix No. 1 Fuel Cell Project"), which shows that SAIC fuel cell is longer than tesla's establishment. Toyota, on the other hand, began to study in 1992.
20 years later, is there any difference between now and the past? Are these differences enough for large-scale commercial use? If the answer is no, why push it? These three questions are answered clearly, so that we can see whether hydrogen energy is a pseudo-track, or whether it is too early to enter although it is a real track. See the risks and rewards clearly.
Then answer the fourth question, which stocks can be invested.
1. 20 years later, is there any difference between now and the past?
The upside:
(1) Strengthen policy support: the policy height and time node of carbon peaking and carbon neutrality are placed there. Specifically, provinces and cities have successively introduced quantitative support policies for hydrogen fuel vehicles and hydrogen refueling stations. Events such as the Winter Olympics are also procured in large quantities. On October 27, 2020, under the guidance of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and compiled by the Society of Automotive Engineers of China, the "Energy-saving and New Energy Vehicle Technology Roadmap 2.0" was released, proposing that the number of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles will reach about 100,000 by 2025, and by 2030-2035, the number of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles will reach about 1 million. Decomposed, Beijing, Shanghai, Guangdong, Henan and other places have proposed to keep 10,000 vehicles in 2025. Roadmap 2.0 expects average annual sales growth rate of 56% in 2020-2025 and 37,000 units in 2025; average annual sales growth rate of 2025-2035 is expected to be 20% and annual sales in 2035 to 206,000 units. The advent of version 2.0 is mainly due to the actual development slightly exceeding the expectations of version 1.0 (version 1.0 is expected to have 5,000 vehicles in 2020, actually reaching 7,352 vehicles; version 1.0 is expected to be 50,000 vehicles in 2025, and the 2.0 version is raised to 100,000 vehicles)
(2) The whole industry chain is mature, and the cost has declined: in terms of hydrogen production, the cost of photovoltaic power consumption can already be reduced to 1 mao / kWh, photovoltaic power generation - electrolysis of water to produce hydrogen has a certain economic feasibility; storage and transportation of hydrogenation, taking hydrogen refueling stations as an example, as of July this year, China has built 110 hydrogen refueling stations, 57 under construction, a total of 167, although compared with the country's 120,000 gas stations is insignificant, but after all, it is the highest peak in history; with hydrogen, far from saying, single commercial vehicle fuel cell system According to Yihuatong's prospectus, the 60kw hydrogen fuel cell system sold 54 sets in 2017 at a price of 1.52 million / set, and by 2019, the sales price of 218 sets dropped to 1.22 million / set, showing a certain scale effect.
(3) Peripheral sales began to start: South Korea's Hyundai NEXO global sales reached 5135 units in the first half of this year, an increase of 56% over the first half of 2020, and exceeded the sales volume of 2019. Sales of The Toyota Mirai in Japan reached 1,763 units in the first half of this year, exceeding the combined sales in 2019 and 2020.
Overall, progress has been slow.
The downside:
Although hydrogen energy has been developed in the past 20 years, it lags far behind the development of other new energy sources. In particular, lithium batteries have made great strides in energy storage and automotive applications, and the necessity of developing hydrogen energy has been questioned.
In terms of automotive applications, such as the short mileage of electric vehicles and slow charging, short boards are being broken. For example, if the NIO ET5 chooses a 100-degree battery pack, it will have a range of 700 kilometers, which is equivalent to that of a fuel vehicle. Hydrogenation takes about 5 minutes, Weilai battery replacement technology can also do, Aodong substation can even be done in 1 and a half minutes. Of course, in terms of commercial vehicles, lithium batteries are still weak, as will be further explained in Part 3.
In terms of energy storage, solar and wind energy are unstable energy sources, but to solve this problem, it is only necessary to add energy storage at all levels in the existing grid system and form a flexible grid. According to a research report by CICC, in an integrated energy system with both light and wind energy, on a typical day, the grid only needs to help with peak shaving by 13% (below). At present, the cost of lithium iron phosphate energy storage has reached 0.4 yuan, which is only twice that of pumped storage, and it is expected to be lower than pumped storage in the next few years. In addition, sodium ion storage, which is expected to be cheaper, is also developing. The development of electrochemical energy storage has made "abandoning wind and light power generation - electrolysis of water to hydrogen - hydrogen energy storage" has become very chicken.
The above electrochemical energy storage is mainly used for intraday energy storage. Hydrogen energy is still useful if it involves cross-seasonal, cross-annual energy storage, or large-scale energy storage (such as storing energy in advance in order to deal with the damage that may occur to power stations in response to war), but such a scenario is rare.
20 years have passed, and the hydrogen energy track of chicken ribs has neither been confirmed nor falsified, and it has survived and crawled forward.
2. Are these changes enough for large-scale commercial use?
The several positives listed above are only quantitative changes, and have not caused qualitative changes.
Still according to the prospectus of Yihuatong, in 2019, 60kw of fuel cells will be 1.22 million / set, and 120kw will be 2.3 million / set. The 2020 annual report does not disclose the details of the product price, but from the revenue of 500 million yuan and the sales volume of 494 sets, the average price is also more than 1 million yuan.
Commercial vehicles, taking Yutong Bus as an example, have 19.9 billion bus sales revenue, selling 42,000 units, with an average selling price of 474,000 units. How can a battery reach two cars on a large scale? At present, the sales of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles rely on government subsidies, or so-called awards in lieu of compensation. The subsidy for a bus or truck was as high as 1 million (500,000 for the state and 500,000 for the local subsidy).
In addition to the car purchase link, the car use link is also a headache. On the one hand, there are very few hydrogen refueling stations, and many cities do not even have a hydrogen refueling station; on the other hand, hydrogen is very expensive, the price after subsidies is 40 yuan / kg, the power generation is 15 degrees, and it is used in passenger cars to run less than 100 kilometers, an average of about 0.5 yuan / km, which is equivalent to fuel vehicles, much more expensive than electric vehicles (about 0.2 yuan / km), and fuel vehicles and electric vehicles do not need state subsidies.
3. If the answer is no, why push it?
Let's start with feasibility.
Although it is not enough for large-scale commercial use for the time being, there is already hope.
According to the calculation of the US Department of Energy quoted in the prospectus of Yihuatong, when the sales volume of a company reaches 10,000 sets, the cost will drop to 80 US dollars / kw, according to this decline, China will drop to about 0.5 million yuan / kw. According to the calculation of 60kw, the cost of the battery fell to 300,000 yuan, the price of the whole vehicle was 600,000 to 700,000 yuan, and the amount of subsidies fell sharply.
What is the concept of 10,000 sets, Yihuatong sold 494 sets last year, a 20-fold increase. According to the calculation of the national sales of 37,000 vehicles in 2025, the market share of Yihuatong needs to reach 27%, which is basically in line with the current market position. In other words, large-scale commercialization will start in 2025.
In terms of hydrogen refueling stations, the state is also increasing its efforts to build and plans to build 1,000 hydrogen refueling stations in 2030. The actual progress is estimated to have accelerated, for example, Sinopec proposed to build 1,000 during the 14th Five-Year Plan period. However, compared with the 120,000 gas stations in the country, it is still insignificant. The cost of hydrogenation is to reduce the selling price to 15 yuan / kg after subsidies. If the power generation per kilogram is 15 degrees, 1 yuan / kWh, slightly cheaper than charging (electricity + service fee, generally 1.0-1.5 yuan / kWh), then the subsidy is expected to be cancelled.
At present, the biggest problem is that there are too few hydrogen refueling stations. On the one hand, it is a safety consideration, the explosion of hydrogen refueling stations is much more powerful than that of gas stations, on the other hand, the construction cost is a matter of construction costs, and one hydrogen refueling station is 10 million or 20 million, which is worth forty or five gas stations.
Then there's the necessity.
What is the ideal of hydrogen energy?
Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, the emissions are only water, seemingly environmentally friendly, but considering the source of hydrogen, it may not be environmentally friendly.
The production of hydrogen, divided according to carbon emissions, is roughly divided into gray hydrogen, blue hydrogen and green hydrogen.
In simple terms, grey hydrogen comes from coal and oil, blue hydrogen comes from natural gas (with carbon capture processes), or industrial by-products, and green hydrogen comes from electrolyzed water.
If you electrolyze water, where does the electricity come from? If it is thermal power generation, it is still not environmentally friendly. If it is hydro-nuclear wind and solar power generation, why not charge the electric vehicle through the national grid, and go to great lengths to make hydrogen, then store and transport, and then add hydrogen fuel vehicles. If it comes from abandoning light and abandoning wind, as mentioned earlier, electrochemical energy storage can also solve a large part, and there are not many scenes where hydrogen energy must be used.
The ideal of hydrogen energy must not be to electrolyze water to produce hydrogen.
What is that?
Photolysis of water to hydrogen.
At present, the laboratory has been able to achieve solar energy from infrared to visible light to ultraviolet full-band hydrogen production. Once commercialized, the sun shines on the surface of the water, without power generation, through semiconductors and other catalysis, directly decomposed into hydrogen, oxygen and organic matter (artificial photosynthesis), injected into hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, the use of discharged water, you can achieve the "water - hydrogen - electricity - water" cycle (catalyst is not a reactant, will not be consumed, can be reused). In addition to environmental protection, the acquisition of sunlight and water is obviously easier than lithium and sodium, without worrying about being stuck in the neck by foreign countries. What's more, efficiency is greatly improved due to the shortening of the energy conversion chain.
Compare:
Electrolysis of water to hydrogen: photovoltaic power generation efficiency of 23%, electrolysis of water to hydrogen in the industry is relatively high efficiency of 60% (the rest of the energy in the form of thermal energy is lost), the two are multiplied, the efficiency of 13.8%. In the laboratory, the use of perovskite for photovoltaic power generation can reach 25.6%, and the use of combined heat and power to produce hydrogen by electrolysis of water (the use of thermal energy) can reach more than 90%, and the two are multiplied by about 25%.
Photolysis of water to hydrogen: The efficiency of the industrialization of domestic photosynthetic new energy companies has reached about 20%. And in the laboratory, 96% efficiency can be achieved:
Therefore, in the early stage of the development of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, the source of hydrogen must not be too environmentally friendly and inefficient, but the future direction is definitely environmentally friendly and efficient. It is not impossible to use hydrogen to produce hydrogen one step ahead.
The above is the absolute advantage of hydrogen energy. Let's talk about the advantages of relative lithium batteries.
As mentioned earlier, the advantages of hydrogen energy in passenger cars are no longer obvious, but they are still significant on commercial vehicles. Model3 lithium battery pack weighs about half a ton, and on the heavy truck that is 2 tons to start, when driving just to transport the battery pack itself has to consume a lot of electricity, the endurance is basically about 200 kilometers. The hydrogen fuel cell, with Yihuatong's 60kw battery, has a mass power density of 0.25kw/kg and a mass of 60kw of 240kg, which is equivalent to 1/8 of the lithium battery pack of heavy trucks, and the endurance can reach 500 kilometers. Even if it is increased to about 100kw in the future, the advantages of small weight and long endurance are still significant. In terms of volume advantages, due to the large volume of hydrogen storage cylinders, the advantages compared with ternary lithium battery packs are not obvious at present, and with the development of higher pressure and even liquid hydrogen technology, the volume advantages will become more and more detailed. The biggest weakness is the low power, Toyota Mirai 100 km acceleration is still about 10 seconds, commercial vehicles do not want to think, fortunately, buses, trucks do not need to accelerate very fast. But this weakness is also gradually improving.
In summary, due to the following advantages, it is still necessary to develop hydrogen energy:
The absolute advantage of hydrogen energy (VS various energy sources): efficient and environmentally friendly.
The relative advantages of hydrogen energy (VS lithium batteries): small weight, long endurance, and the advantages of small size in the future will become increasingly prominent.
4. If you want to bet on the hydrogen energy track, which targets can be bet?
According to the sales of 37,000 vehicles in 2025, the hydrogen fuel cell vehicle in 2025 is roughly equivalent to the lithium battery car in 2013, and now it is roughly equivalent to the lithium battery car in 2010. It's too early.
The following is a map of hydrogen energy industry chain companies, many of which are not listed, and there are not many options. Focus on these few that draw red frames.
1. Fuel cell track
According to the "Fuel Cell Vehicle Monthly Database" of the Institute of High Industry Industry (GGII), from the perspective of installed capacity ranking, the top five companies in the installed capacity of hydrogen fuel cell systems in 2020 are Edelman Hydrogen Energy, Yihuatong, Guohong Remodeling, Exploration Automobile, Weichai Power, and the top five companies account for 69% of China's hydrogen fuel cell system installed capacity in 2020.
Edelman Hydrogen Energy: The strength is comparable to that of Yihuatong, the production capacity is also 10,000 sets, the installed capacity exceeded Yihuatong last year, and it just completed the B round of financing this month, with a valuation of 3.47 billion.
Yihuatong: The leader of hydrogen fuel cells, the technology and production capacity reserves are still relatively strong, the business is simple and clear, and the performance and stock price rise are elastic. According to the sales volume of 10,000 sets in 2025 (the current production capacity is also 10,000 sets), the average 90kw / set (currently 30kw and 60kw), 0.5 million yuan / kw calculation, revenue of 4.5 billion yuan, net interest rate calculated by 10%, net profit of 450 million yuan, calculated by 100 times PE, market value of 45 billion, compared with the current market value of 20 billion there is 125% room for growth. Assuming that the company's stock price in 2024 reflects the performance expectations for 2025, buy now, double in 3 years, and the value of the Bo rate is also OK. However, it is worth noting that this expectation is very full, and don't forget, Edelman's hydrogen energy valuation is only 3.47 billion. However, in 2025, the growth space of Yihuatong has just opened, and by 2030, if it maintains its leading position, it will not become the Ningde era, at least become Guoxuan Hi-Tech (current market value of 90 billion).
Xiongtao shares: The situation is similar to Yihuatong, with a much smaller market share and a market value of less than 10 billion. The biggest risk is being killed by the faucet. Those with a high risk appetite can get on the bus.
Weichai Power: the technical reserve is very strong, the production capacity is 20,000 sets, 2 times that of Yihuatong, and the sales volume is worse than that of Yihuatong. However, from The calculation of Yihuatong, we can see that in 2025, it will also contribute to the market value of tens of billions, and the market value of Weichai Power's other businesses is more than 100 billion, plus tens of billions, and it has not risen much. In the same way, vehicle manufacturing is not recommended to invest, unless it is a new force in hydrogen fuel vehicles, and there is only one type of hydrogen fuel cell vehicle.
Reshaping shares and Guohong Hydrogen Energy: The reshaping share IPO has been terminated, and it is impossible to buy the industry. In addition, the reshaping of shares and Guohong Hydrogen Energy is a parent-subsidiary relationship, and there are many related party transactions, even if it is an IPO, the corporate governance risk is very large.
2. Catalyst track
Guiyan platinum industry: the status of platinum in hydrogen fuel cells, equivalent to the status of cobalt in lithium batteries, is characterized by expensive, but no he can not, the overall direction is to minimize the amount of use, and even seek alternatives. At present, China's platinum catalyst is basically monopolized by foreign countries, the company is the only company in China that can produce platinum catalysts, but it can only be produced in the laboratory, and there is still a long way to go from mass production. Let's take a look.
3. Hydrogen refueling station and hydrogen refueling equipment track
The main force in the construction of hydrogen refueling stations is definitely two barrels of oil, and other companies can get a piece of the pie.
Houpu shares: originally engaged in the construction of natural gas stations and natural gas equipment, extended to hydrogen refueling stations and hydrogen refueling machines, hydrogen refueling guns. Last year, a total of 3 hydrogen refueling stations were built and some equipment was sold, with an income of more than 9 million yuan, and an average income of more than 3 million yuan per station (the total cost of a station was 10 million or 20 million, Houpu shares only involved part of it, and other costs included other equipment such as land and compressors). China plans to maintain 1,000 hydrogen refueling stations in 2030, but Sinopec alone proposed to build 1,000 (an average of 200 per year) during the 14th Five-Year Plan period. Assuming that in 2025, China will build 400 seats, and the market share of Houpu shares will be 10%, 40 seats, and each seat will have a revenue of 3 million yuan, and it will only be 120 million revenues. At a 10% net profit margin, a profit of $12 million. Give 100 times PE only 1.2 billion. At present, the market value has reached 9.5 billion, and it has not risen much to 10.7 billion. The company's largest imagination space comes from the joint venture with Air Liquide Group of France, which has liquid hydrogen filling technology (the current commercial hydrogenation technology is high-pressure gaseous hydrogen), and how to realize it remains to be seen.
4. Hydrogen bottle track
Jingcheng shares: Like platinum catalysts, hydrogen storage cylinders have also been monopolized by foreign countries for a long time. The company was originally engaged in the production of natural gas cylinders, and now extends to hydrogen storage cylinders. A hydrogen fuel cell vehicle is equipped with 2-3 hydrogen storage bottles, calculated according to the sales volume of 37,000 units in 2025, plus other scenarios such as hydrogen refueling stations, calculated by 100,000, assuming that the company's market share is 10% and 10,000. According to the research report of Ping An Securities, the cost price is nearly 3000 US dollars / one for 35Mpa and about 3500 US dollars / for 70Mpa. Considering a certain gross profit margin, the average selling price is calculated according to 30,000 yuan, 10,000 corresponding to 300 million yuan of sales, tens of millions of net profits, and 100 times PE is only a few tens of billions of market value. Now with a market capitalization of 9.5 billion, there is limited upside.
Overall, the domestic catalyst track is almost non-existent, and the market space for hydrogen refueling equipment and hydrogen storage cylinder tracks is too small before 2025.
So down, there is almost nothing that can be thrown. Really want to invest, Yihuatong.
Hydrogen production is a major subdivision track, especially the transformation of coal companies to produce hydrogen has inherent advantages, and this part of the content will be decomposed next time.
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