A few days ago, hydrogen energy buses slowly drove, transporting 1,099 drill athletes to the platform of Zhangjiakou Prince Edward City High-speed Railway Station. During the Winter Olympics, as many as 710 such hydrogen energy buses will be invested, and before that, Zhangjiakou's hydrogen energy vehicles have been running smoothly for more than three years, with a cumulative operating mileage of more than 21 million kilometers and a passenger capacity of more than 65 million passengers.
This is also the first time that hydrogen energy vehicles have appeared in the Winter Olympics, compared with trams and oil cars all over the streets, hydrogen energy vehicles are more mysterious. This issue of 21V Finance will unveil the mystery of hydrogen energy in the Winter Olympics and discuss the future development of hydrogen energy.
Hydrogen energy supply chain to help green Winter Olympics
The hydrogen energy supply chain is composed of three links: hydrogen production, hydrogen storage and transportation, and hydrogen refueling. According to incomplete statistics, there are as many as 33 hydrogen energy suppliers at the Beijing Winter Olympics.
In the modern industrial industry, hydrogen production process is divided into fossil fuel hydrogen production, industrial by-product hydrogen, and electrolysis of aquatic hydrogen.
Hydrogen produced by methane steam reforming or self-heating reforming using fossil energy as raw material is called gray hydrogen.
Blue hydrogen is based on gray hydrogen, the carbon dioxide in the production process is processed by carbon capture or carbon storage, which is essentially not clean energy. Only the hydrogen produced by electrolyzed water can achieve zero emissions, that is, green hydrogen.
Meijin Energy (000723. SZ) is one of the hydrogen suppliers of the Beijing Winter Olympics, with an 800m3/h natural gas hydrogen production unit and a 500m3/h water electrolysis hydrogen production unit, with an annual hydrogen production of 12 million m3/h. The second phase of the industrial park built by the company in Fangshan covers an area of 86.6 acres, with a total investment of about 550 million yuan, to meet the growing demand for hydrogen energy in the capital.
Zhangjiakou Haipel, jointly invested by Binhua Co., Ltd. (601678.SH) and hydrogen fuel cell giant 688339.SH, uses local convenient photovoltaic and wind power resources to produce "green hydrogen" with zero carbon emissions throughout the process. The full load output of four tons of hydrogen a day can meet the needs of more than 400 hydrogen fuel cell buses a day, and it is also one of the hydrogen supply units of the Zhangjiakou Winter Olympics.
Hydrogen is the lightest gas, extremely dense and hot-tempered (flammable and explosive), which makes transportation more difficult. Gas-hydrogen trailers are the most widely used method of hydrogen transportation, and during the Winter Olympics, Jinghui Gas will use 300 specially transported hydrogen trucks. CIMC ENRIC (HK3899) also provided more than 30 hydrogen tube bundle containers and more than 10 50MPa hydrogen storage cylinder sets for the Beijing Winter Olympics.
Enterprises in all aspects of the hydrogen energy industry have participated in the construction of hydrogen refueling stations, and the hydrogen refueling stations are responsible for the energy supply of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles for the 2022 Winter Olympics. At the beginning of 2021, PetroChina added the "first shot" to ensure the hydrogen energy of the Winter Olympics at the hydrogen refueling station in the service area of the North Prince City of the Chonglitou Canal in Zhangjiakou. Up to now, PetroChina, Hyper, CIMC ENRIC and other enterprises have jointly built 16 hydrogen refueling stations, which can effectively meet the hydrogen energy needs of green transportation in the Winter Olympics.
The "heart" of hydrogen vehicles - hydrogen fuel cells
On December 15, 2021, 30 Yutong hydrogen energy buses equipped with the "Hydrogen Teng" FCS80 fuel cell system were officially delivered in Beijing. The hydrogen energy bus has a cruising range of 630 kilometers, the fastest 10 minutes to fill up with hydrogen, can achieve minus 30 degrees Celsius low temperature start, to meet the northern city low temperature operation requirements.
On November 12 of the same year, toyota, Beijing Motor and Yihuatong jointly developed the Beiqi Foton hydrogen fuel cell bus, which will also be put into use at the Winter Olympics.
Compared with conventional fuel vehicles, hydrogen buses can reduce carbon dioxide emissions by about 70 kilograms for every 100 kilometers traveled.
The hydrogen fuel cell system has a material-level fully autonomous technology, and its key materials such as catalysts, diffusion layers, proton membranes, membrane electrodes and bipolar plates are autonomously controllable, and have complete independent intellectual property rights in stack assembly, system integration and component control processes.
Overall, the mainland fuel cell system has basically achieved localization, the localization rate has approached 80%, and some key materials, such as proton exchange membranes, gas diffusion layers, catalysts and other parts need to rely on imports.
With the acceleration of localization substitution, the cost of fuel cells is expected to further decline. According to the data disclosed by Jie Hydrogen Technology under SAIC Motor, the cost of the fifth-generation fuel cell system is less than 40% of the cost of the third generation, and the technical autonomy of the core material of the stack and the localization of production are particularly obvious to the cost reduction effect of the fuel cell.
The "hydrogen" boat has passed through the Ten Thousand Heavy Mountains
The demonstration application of the Beijing Winter Olympics will enhance the confidence of enterprises and local governments in the application of hydrogen energy. Up to now, more than 20 provinces and cities have issued hydrogen energy-related policy plans to clarify hydrogen energy development goals from 2025 to 2030.
If hydrogen energy is to become an emerging energy source accepted by the public and occupy a place in the energy structure, cost reduction and efficiency improvement will play a decisive role.
Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are considered to be one of the broadest prospects for development, but the current development of hydrogen energy vehicles is still in the early stage of commercialization, and the new energy vehicle subsidy policy is different, the state is in accordance with its goal completion to take "awards instead of compensation" to encourage hydrogen energy. It is not difficult to see that the state's positioning of hydrogen fuel cells is a supplement to electrification, after all, the electricity price of hydrogen production cannot be cheaper than the price of charging electricity. The cost of alkaline hydrogen production is about 20 yuan / kg under the price of water electrolysis hydrogen production of 0.3 yuan / kWh, while the cost of hydrogen production from fossil fuels is only about 12.64 yuan / kg.
Under economic considerations, fossil fuel hydrogen production accounts for more than 60% of the total hydrogen production capacity, and electrolyzed water accounts for less than 2%, which greatly restricts the development of green hydrogen in terms of cost and economy.
However, with the decline in renewable energy electricity costs and equipment costs, as well as technological advances, green hydrogen parity is driven. In 2050, the proportion of green hydrogen supply is expected to reach 70%.
At the same time, due to economic considerations, hydrogen storage and transportation should change the current single transport mode of single gas hydrogen trailer. Liquid hydrogen tank truck storage and transportation in long-distance transportation has a strong competitiveness, a single single bicycle effective hydrogen transport volume can be increased by more than 10 times, can reduce the tank truck and personnel allocation, although it will bring higher liquefaction costs, but the increase is not large.
In general, reliable and low hydrogen energy supply, storage and transportation and the construction and maintenance of hydrogen refueling stations will be the restrictive links in the large-scale development of the hydrogen energy industry. In order to effectively break through the bottleneck of hydrogen energy development in various regions, such as hydrogen production, hydrogen storage and transportation, and hydrogen refueling, standardize the approval management system, and explore and improve the profit model according to local conditions.