Polar Daily Original
Author | Yang Chengchun
Edit | Luan Crane
Hydrogen energy has the three innate advantages of high energy density, easy large-scale storage and zero emissions, and is recognized as the ultimate energy source worldwide. However, in terms of its acquired development, hydrogen energy faces the test of cost and market.
From a worldwide perspective, hydrogen energy has developed to a critical period from demonstration application to market - the market reaction of hydrogen energy will directly affect the future technical direction and capital trend of hydrogen energy.
In this critical period, where is the market breakthrough for hydrogen energy? Yang Jun, deputy director of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Fuel Cell Vehicle Demonstration City Cluster Work Class Office, gave a daily answer to the extreme: the field of transportation.
The flexibility and scale of the transportation sector determine that it is a very high-quality pioneer in the field of energy innovation: the energy revolution is often successful in the field of transportation, and then pushed to other areas of production and life.
01
Commercial demonstration, incentives instead of subsidies
Yang Jun analyzed that looking at the world, fuel cell vehicles are the "natural choice" direction of hydrogen energy marketization. However, the current cost of fuel cell vehicles is at a high level, coupled with the high construction cost of hydrogen refueling stations (the cost of a single hydrogen refueling station is as high as 15 million), the number is small, so before the technical economy of transportation equipment and infrastructure networks is presented, the demonstration application of commercial vehicle pilots is a key breakthrough.
"The early development of fuel cell vehicles in the mainland should be based on commercial vehicles, such as freight vehicles, heavy industrial vehicles, etc., after the commercial vehicle market model runs through, and then with points and surfaces, the lines will be combined into a network, through the construction of more hydrogen refueling stations, increase technical investment to reduce costs and other means to create space for the development of passenger cars," Yang Jun said.
At the end of 2021, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Development and Reform Commission and the Energy Bureau issued the "Notice on Launching a New Batch of Fuel Cell Vehicle Demonstration Application Work", officially launching the two major fuel cell vehicle demonstration city clusters in Henan and Hebei, coupled with the established three major urban agglomerations of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, Shanghai and Guangdong, the mainland has formed a "3+2" fuel cell vehicle demonstration pattern in the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, with a total of 47 cities.
According to the plan, during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, the number of fuel cell vehicles in these demonstration bases will reach about 40,000 units.
According to the "Notice on Launching the Demonstration Application of Fuel Cell Vehicles" and other documents, The Polar Daily has sorted out
In Yang Jun's view, the establishment of a demonstration base, one is to concentrate all kinds of resources, to create a fuel cell vehicle "model room", to achieve targeted; the second is to balance capital and policy, prevent blind overheating investment behavior, and do a good job in expected management.
This move is easily reminiscent of the 2009-2012 lithium battery car "ten cities and 1000 vehicles" demonstration promotion policy: through the pilot effect, electric vehicles ushered in a sales explosion in 2018, surging from 777,000 to 1.256 million units, and last year reached 3.5 million units.
Fuel cell vehicles are likely to replicate their success, or even in less time. Because "in terms of incentive policies, the use of 'rewards instead of subsidies' that is more in line with market laws, breaking the restrictions of administrative regions, selecting cities where excellent enterprises in the industrial chain are located nationwide for alliance, and 'rewarding merits and deeds' according to market strength," Yang Jun told Daily.
02
The stable and sustainable supply of hydrogen energy requires the determination of the government to bite the hard bones
Although the mainland has advanced promotion experience in the application of pure electric vehicles, the demonstration application logic of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles is different, and the most significant difference lies in the energy supply and guarantee mode, of which hydrogen energy supply is the top priority.
Yang Jun told Daily that although the production scale of hydrogen in the mainland is large, it is still stretched in terms of real energy-oriented industrial applications, and there is a big gap with the market application demand in the preparation, storage, transportation, and filling of hydrogen as the basic conditions for energy security.
Taking Beijing as an example, there are only two hydrogen production units of Yanshan Petrochemical and Huanyu Jinghui, although Yanshan Petrochemical has a relatively large-scale industrial by-product hydrogen, but the hydrogen that meets the purity of hydrogen for fuel cell vehicles is currently less than 2500 tons / year, far from meeting the hydrogen demand of 38,000 tons / year for 10,000 fuel cell vehicles proposed in the "14th Five-Year Plan" of Beijing.
And these hydrogens are mostly based on gray hydrogen, under the requirements of the double carbon target, the future to more to blue hydrogen and green hydrogen transition, if there is no reasonable planning arrangements, to provide high-quality, low-carbon, stable and reliable hydrogen sources, it will be more difficult.
Solving the above problems involves the support of industrial development policies and mechanisms in many fields such as land, planning, energy, etc. If there is a lack of administrative force to actively design and guide, relying solely on the role of the market, it is difficult for high-quality market players and hydrogen source production projects to land, and the hydrogen energy supply in the region will be in a tight balance or even in a state of shortage.
Due to the limited number of participants, it is objectively very likely that a small number of monopolies will be formed and the market price will be distorted. Problems such as hydrogen shortage, high-priced hydrogen, and supply cut-off may emerge, which is a major risk hidden danger in the ecological construction of the hydrogen energy industry and the stable and efficient operation of demonstration projects.
Yang Jun believes that under the dual carbon target, the future energy system from traditional fossil energy to new energy sources such as electricity and hydrogen is the general trend. With the gradual withdrawal of traditional fossil energy supply facilities such as gas stations, the entire energy system is facing changes and redeployment.
Yang Jun suggested aggregating the forces of urban planning, development and reform, finance, transportation, urban management, economy and information, and electric power, and promoting the integrated and coordinated planning of land, urban planning, construction, power grids, and different energy supply needs (charging and hydrogenation), and realizing a power grid covering new energy sources such as hydrogen and electricity from the whole process of energy preparation, storage and transportation, and refueling.
03
Through the right-of-way policy, attract consumer terminals to enter the market
At present, hydrogen fuel cell vehicles still have disadvantages in terms of technical economy, how to start large-scale demonstration, the most important thing is to "prescribe the right medicine" and find the demand point.
Yang Jun told Daily that in large cities in China, at first out of the need for road traffic safety and alleviating urban congestion, the management idea of day and night distribution was generally adopted for road freight in the city, which was guaranteed by a small amount of quota for production and daily necessities.
In recent years, considering the large pollution caused by fuel trucks to the air, most first- and second-tier cities have strict requirements for the time for trucks to enter the city, basically limited to the early morning hours. So if you change to a fuel cell truck with zero pollution, can you consider releasing it during the day?
Yang Jun introduced to The Extreme Daily that using the "privilege" of the day pass to guide more fuel cell trucks into use is a crucial policy option to open the application of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles at a time when the comprehensive application cost is high.
In addition to the right of way in the city, cross-regional transportation is also a very important scenario due to the use characteristics of hydrogen fuel cell trucks for long-distance heavy loads. In terms of policy, it is necessary to pay attention to the coordination of inter-city right-of-way policies, especially the coordination of policies such as differentiated tolls on expressways and regional passes connecting the two ends.
For example, the Tianjin Municipal Transportation Commission has recently issued a policy for new energy trucks such as hydrogen fuel cells entering and leaving Tianjin Port to be exempted from domestic tolls, but it is only for the liberalization of Tianjin, and the improvement of the overall market incentive and application environment is relatively limited. If the other two places in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region can simultaneously strengthen policy coordination and form a policy combination of intercity penetration, the effect may be more obvious.
By improving freight-related right-of-way policies and directly attacking the pain points of commercial vehicles, it is an important weight for the scale of the fuel cell vehicle market. Urban freight often needs to use refrigeration to ensure product quality, and the consumption of electric energy is large, affecting the mileage, and the high energy density of hydrogen energy can effectively compensate for this.
04
"Unveil the commander-in-chief", select the best and the best
From a technical point of view, the mainland is currently not very bright on the fuel cell vehicle track. According to the Beijing Transportation Development Research Institute, hydrogen fuel cell vehicles include a total of 49 key core technology links, of which the current mainland independent technology is still mainly in a small number of stack core components and system integration and other aspects of the initial master of know-how, in many technical links are still in the learning and verification of the catch-up stage.
But that doesn't mean we don't have a chance to overtake in a corner. Backed by the world's largest market, if targeted and coordinated policies can be made in transportation policies, mainland hydrogen energy can completely break through under the overall operation of a controllable and orderly society.
Yang Jun believes that "unveiling the commander-in-chief" is a shortcut to open up the full-link technology industry. "Unveiling the commander- refers to the list released by the relevant government part, facing the whole market, clearly indicating the development direction of fuel cell vehicles, encouraging the main body of each chain of the whole industry to "unveil the list", especially supporting the "joint unveiling".
In this way, the upstream, middle and downstream industries are organically combined: if you want to "take command" successfully, you need fuel cell technology as the basis for development, energy supply enterprises as energy security, and the participation of transportation enterprises as a market channel and an interface for entering the market terminal, so as to better connect the government, enterprises, and consumers, forming a strong binding and strong cooperation.
At the same time, the transportation policy should also focus on how to better integrate and coordinate with hydrogen energy in the city's existing energy supplementary facilities, such as gas stations and charging stations, so as to achieve a network of energy and power, and create a good environment and atmosphere for "unveiling the commander-in-chief".
"It's not a simple addition problem, it's a multiplication problem," Yang Jun told Polar Daily.
05
Public opinion guides and solves security anxieties
The safety of hydrogen energy has attracted widespread attention in society, and there are even rumors that riding a fuel cell vehicle is sitting on a bomb. In fact, the safety of fuel cell vehicles has long been certified.
The conditions for hydrogen explosion are quite harsh, requiring confined space, open flame, and being in the explosion limit range, three conditions.
Yang Jun told Daily that in Beijing, for example, there are more than 300 hydrogen bus lines in Beijing, which have been operating safely and stably for many years. At the same time, in the preparatory stage of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, in the face of the first application of the world's largest hydrogen fuel cell vehicle, Tsinghua University, Beiqi Foton and other institutions have done a large number of hydrogen vehicle safety tests in accordance with the most stringent international standards, including the crash safety test that everyone is most concerned about, and the results have been successfully passed.
The safety of fuel cell vehicles at the technical and product levels has been fully scientifically verified.
How to eliminate public opinion concerns about the safety of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, more need to use objective, rational and scientific thinking to discuss and evaluate new technology products such as hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, and need to be objectively neutral to the academic, industrial and policy decision makers. Through greater dissemination and more diverse forms, guide public opinion to gradually accept.
Yang Jun believes that the ongoing Beijing Winter Olympics is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for hydrogen energy to establish a safe image. Thousands of fuel cell vehicles are displayed intensively, which is unprecedented in the development of hydrogen energy. Therefore, this Winter Olympics will also be an excellent window for the popularization of fuel cell safety.
This move also undoubtedly demonstrates the mainland's confidence in displaying the research results of fuel cell vehicles at home and abroad, as well as the resolute attitude of developing hydrogen energy. This is a comprehensive positive public opinion guidance for hydrogen energy safety, or it will effectively solve the worries of the development of fuel cell vehicles.
*Captions and illustrations are from Visual China.
*Disclaimer: In no event shall the information herein or the opinions expressed herein constitute investment advice to any person.