On February 4, the Beijing Bird's Nest was brightly lit, the eyes of the world were focused on this, at the main torch lighting ceremony, replacing the burning fire with a "micro-fire" to pass on the concept of low-carbon and green Winter Olympics to amaze everyone, as the general director of the Winter Olympics, Zhang Yimou said: "The last stick of the torch, its flame is small, low-carbon environmental protection, reflects such a concept, greatly surprised everyone. ”
And this torch also has a "green heart", using hydrogen as fuel, becoming the first hydrogen fuel torch in the history of the Winter Olympics, compared with the previous burning torch, it can save about 99.9% of energy, and the concept of low-carbon environmental protection is fully displayed. Not only that, in the athletes, media, coaching staff connection services, this Winter Olympics also applied hydrogen fuel cell vehicles on a large scale.
According to the data released by the Beijing Winter Olympic Organizing Committee, the winter Olympics demonstrated the operation of more than 1,000 hydrogen energy vehicles and equipped with more than 30 hydrogen refueling stations, which is the world's largest fuel cell vehicle demonstration. It also provides reference for the follow-up research and development and demonstration operation of the hydrogen energy industry, and effectively accelerates the landing of the hydrogen energy industry as soon as possible. So with the excellent performance of the Beijing Winter Olympics, combined with the successful demonstration of hydrogen energy at the Tokyo Summer Olympics, can the 2022 Winter Olympics become a new starting point for hydrogen vehicles?
Ride the wind of the Winter Olympics to open a large-scale demonstration of the application of hydrogen energy vehicles
"Green" is one of the four major Olympic concepts of the Beijing Winter Olympic Games, and the core requirement is to run sustainability through the entire process of preparation for the Beijing Winter Olympic Games. Low-carbon management and ecological protection have also become the two key words of the Beijing Winter Olympics, and through a variety of measures to minimize carbon emissions, the Winter Olympics have become a booster for sustainable development. In the connection of athletes, media and coaching staff, the large-scale application of hydrogen fuel cell buses in the Winter Olympics also shows the potential of the mainland's hydrogen energy network construction in the energy field from the other hand, and the mainland's continuous implementation of the concept of sustainable development.
In the low-carbon management report of the Beijing Winter Olympics, the principle of "plain electricity and mountain hydrogen" was clearly put forward, and the use of electric vehicles and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles was promoted in various competition areas. As the venue of this Winter Olympic Games, Zhangjiakou, Yanqing and other places have the characteristics of high road slip, low temperature steep slope, the need for vehicles to have a long endurance and low temperature resistance ability, which also gives hydrogen fuel cells the opportunity to give full play to their advantages, at the time of the Winter Olympics, hydrogen fuel cell vehicles from Toyota Motor, BAIC Group, Yutong Bus, Foton Motor and other car companies are also actively involved in the Beijing Winter Olympics to provide transportation support for the Winter Olympics.
Among them, In order to make the vehicle go to the core area in a "100%" excellent state, Yutong Automobile also developed a low-temperature start technology, the vehicle completed a static start of -30 °C in the low-temperature environment experimental cabin, the whole vehicle passed the high-cold test in Heihe, running stably in the cold area, and generated a lot of heat during the operation of the fuel cell, and the R & D personnel can also provide heating for the car by using waste heat, greatly reducing the energy loss caused by heating, thereby ensuring the vehicle mileage and reducing the winter heating energy consumption of the whole vehicle by 40%. Let hydrogen fuel cell vehicles in the Winter Olympics work will not have the winter mileage anxiety problem of pure electric vehicles.
In summary, the various characteristics of hydrogen fuel cells are very suitable for the use environment of connection and transportation of the Beijing Winter Olympics, and also show the unique advantages and potential of hydrogen fuel cells in cold areas and commercial vehicle applications to the world, and also help promote industrialization.
It is worth mentioning that the Beijing Bus Group recently issued a document saying that in mid-March, some vehicles will end the winter Olympic event support task, and 212 hydrogen fuel cell vehicles will be transferred to the daily transportation of buses in Yanqing District. Therefore, with the application of hydrogen fuel vehicles during the 2022 Winter Olympics, China's hydrogen fuel buses have accelerated from ideal to reality.
In fact, in the "14th Five-Year Plan" outline, hydrogen energy has been forward-looking planned as one of the potential industries in the future. According to incomplete statistics, at present, 30 provinces and more than 150 cities in the country have mentioned hydrogen energy development in the "14th Five-Year Plan", and more than 50 cities have issued special plans for local hydrogen energy development. According to the planning goals of various provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities, by 2025, more than 1,000 hydrogen refueling stations will be built nationwide, and more than 54,000 hydrogen fuel vehicles will be promoted.
Full universal access still faces many challenges
Although hydrogen is recognized as the most ideal clean energy, with diversified sources, drive efficiency, zero operating emissions and other characteristics, but in the popularity of passenger cars still face many problems, such as hydrogen manufacturing costs and hydrogen refueling station construction difficulties and other factors, are long-term problems, so it also led to the mainland hydrogen fuel cell models are mainly commercial vehicles, and passenger cars are basically in the research and development verification stage, there are many card neck technology to overcome, Among them, the cost problem is one of the biggest obstacles restricting its large-scale application. Hydrogen energy industry involves the production, storage, transportation, use of multiple links, the industrial chain is long, the technology is complex, in reality, the large-scale promotion and application of hydrogen energy is still facing high hydrogen fuel cell manufacturing costs, weak hydrogen refueling station facilities, terminal hydrogen costs of high bottlenecks, directly leading to the full popularization of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles The difficulty is much higher than that of pure electric vehicles and fuel vehicles.
In addition to the manufacturing cost is difficult to control, the cost of hydrogen storage is also a problem to be faced by hydrogen fuel cell vehicles in the later stage, as we all know, hydrogen is a gas with extremely small density under normal temperature and pressure, and it takes more than 5kg of hydrogen to meet the reasonable endurance of a car. At present, more hydrogen compression is stored in hydrogen storage tanks, but this technology is very demanding on tanks and materials and sealing requirements. Taking Toyota as an example, the current Toyota first-generation Mirai hydrogen storage tank uses KEVLAR material, which can withstand 70 MPa pressure, although the technology is satisfied, but this KEVLAR material is expensive, and it will still face the problem of cost of use. Another method is to cool the hydrogen to -253 ° C, liquefy it and save it, but this is not only still costly, but also much more difficult to perform.
Even if the cost and technical problems are solved, the market is also one of the problems of the use and application of hydrogen fuel cell models, and the development of any new technology needs to be invested in a large scale and related policy guidance, but at this stage, only a few enterprises are promoting the development of hydrogen energy, it is difficult to drive the effect in the world, and related problems are difficult to be solved. However, the Winter Olympics will play a very big role in promoting the market of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, combined with the continuous promotion of the "14th Five-Year Plan", this 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics will make more companies see the opportunity for the development of hydrogen fuel cells, willing to invest in it, plus the mainland has the world's largest automobile consumer market, once a breakthrough in technology and cost control, there is naturally no shortage of market. However, this is certainly a long-term development process, but with the improvement of large-scale industrialization, the cost will gradually decrease, the performance will be slowly cashed in, more importantly, with the strong support of the policy, the speed of industrial progress will be greatly accelerated, providing a better opportunity for the development of hydrogen energy vehicles in China.
Write at the end
Previously, Ouyang Xiaoping, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, predicted in the "Development Status and Future Prospects of Hydrogen Fuel Cell Technology" that the cost of hydrogen fuel cell systems will also decline with the development of technology and the continuous expansion of production scale, and the production cost in the next 10 years is expected to be reduced to about 50% at present, and by 2035, the cost of hydrogen fuel vehicles will have the same competitiveness as the internal combustion engine, basically close to the advanced level of foreign countries. With the large-scale application of the Winter Olympics, it is expected that in 2022, driven by subsidy policies, continuous cost reduction of the industrial chain, and carbon reduction demand, the pace of domestic hydrogen energy industrialization will surely accelerate again, and the application scenarios will continue to innovate. Therefore, the author believes that 2022 is likely to become a new starting point for the industrialization of hydrogen energy, and there will be more facilities and products in the future, so that everyone can truly feel that this new energy vehicle is getting closer and closer to daily life.