"Hydrogen energy is the key direction of strategic emerging industries, and it is a new growth point for building a green and low-carbon industrial system and creating industrial transformation and upgrading."
The debate about hydrogen energy can be put to rest! The future status of hydrogen energy has been concluded at the national level.
On March 23, the National Development and Reform Commission and the National Energy Administration jointly issued the "Long-term Plan for the Development of hydrogen energy industry (2021-2035)" (hereinafter referred to as the "Plan"), which clarifies the future development direction, application prospects and core objectives of the hydrogen energy industry in mainland China.
The introduction of the "Planning" is in the spring, which seems to indicate that the hydrogen energy industry is about to usher in spring in China.
Li Hehe, President of Hyundai Motor Group (China).
Two days later, at the 8th "China Electric Vehicle 100 People's Conference", Hyundai Motor Group (China) President Lee Hyuk-kuo took Hyundai Motor's practice as an example to introduce South Korea's experience in building a hydrogen energy society. He suggested that the most important thing at this stage is to continuously shape a successful model through openness and cooperation, and jointly promote the healthy and sustainable development of the hydrogen energy industry.
1
"Korean Experience" for Building a Hydrogen Society
The introduction of the "Planning" has made the already hot hydrogen energy concept even more hot, and on March 23, 13 A-share listed companies related to hydrogen energy have collectively risen and fallen.
The concept of hydrogen energy has never lacked heat, because it is the ultimate means to solve the crisis of the human energy supply system.
In fact, human beings are not short of energy, and the solar energy received by the surface alone every year is equivalent to 130 trillion tons of standard coal, and the utilization rate can meet all the energy needs of human beings as long as it reaches 1.5 parts per 10,000.
But why is humanity still so dependent on unsustainable fossil fuels – fossil energy accounts for 84% of the world's primary energy consumption structure in 2019 (see chart below)!
Fossil energy not only brings huge carbon emissions, but also non-renewable; and wind, light, water and other "clean energy" can not provide stable power output, it is difficult to connect to the grid, in the case of wind, light, hydropower installed capacity is still very low, the mainland has occurred serious wind, light, water abandonment phenomenon.
If the hydrogen energy system is fully completed, this problem can be solved, China has a wealth of wind, hydropower, solar resources, with these clean renewable energy power generation - no need to connect to the grid - nearby electrolysis of water to hydrogen, hydrogen can be stored, transport, so as to achieve the decoupling of the power supply side and energy consumption side, human beings will also completely get rid of the dependence on non-renewable energy.
With the construction of a hydrogen energy system, the energy supply of the whole society can be easily renewable, and the goal of "carbon neutrality" can be successfully achieved.
Hydrogen energy, as the ultimate means to solve the crisis of human energy supply system, has long been agreed upon in the academic and industrial circles, but in the past 20 years, the development of the hydrogen energy industry has been slow, and the construction of a hydrogen energy society is far slower than everyone expects.
South Korea is ahead of the world in this field.
In 2021, Hyundai Motor Group ranked first in global hydrogen fuel cell vehicle (hereinafter referred to as FCV) sales for three consecutive years, and its market share was as high as 53.5%, which was almost the only one.
In addition to hyundai motor group's own years of persistence and efforts, it is inseparable from the strong support of the South Korean government. South Korea has set up a "Hydrogen Energy Economic Committee" led by the Prime Minister, composed of 8 ministers and top experts in various fields of industry, education and research to fully support the industrialization of hydrogen energy; in addition, South Korea has also established a "Hydrogen Energy Industry Policy Freedom Zone" to promote new technology verification and policy system innovation.
The South Korean government is also piloting the construction of hydrogen energy society in some cities, and widely introduces hydrogen energy refrigeration, heating and power supply in residential and transportation areas, and vigorous subsidies are of course indispensable, such as 3 billion won (about 15.6 million yuan) subsidies for new hydrogen refueling stations; consumers can currently get about half of the subsidies for car payments when purchasing FCVs.
As of October 2021, the cumulative sales of Hyundai NEXO hydrogen fuel cell vehicles have exceeded 20,000 units, becoming the world's best-selling FCV. Hyundai Motor Group plans to officially introduce the first NEXO that complies with Chinese regulations into the Chinese market this year.
In addition, South Korea has also promulgated the world's first Hydrogen Safety Law and the Law on Promoting Hydrogen Economy and Hydrogen Safety Management, which provide legal guarantees for the research and development and production of hydrogen energy equipment, which is particularly worthy of Reference by China.
With the strong support of the policy, the construction of South Korea's hydrogen energy society is accelerating, and the roadmap for the development of South Korea's hydrogen economy proposes to replace crude oil imports with hydrogen imports by 2050; by 2040, the cumulative output of FCVs will exceed 6.2 million, and 1200 hydrogen refueling stations will be built.
The early policy support has achieved good results, Hyundai Motor Group has become the global leader of FCVs, the group announced that by 2028 all models will launch FCV versions, by 2030 the cost of FCVs will be reduced to the same as pure electric vehicles (BEVs), by 2040 the beautiful vision of hydrogen energy society will be fully realized.
The "Korean experience" of building a hydrogen energy society is an enlightenment for China, and concentrating on big things has always been China's innate institutional advantage.
2
Only when passenger cars are popularized can the FCV industry develop benignly
To develop the hydrogen energy economy, hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (FCVs) are the key and the focus, and the "Plan" clearly states that by 2025, the number of FCVs will be increased to 50,000.
As of 2021, the national FCV ownership is only 0.85 million units, which means that in the next 4 years, the compound growth rate of annual FCV sales in the Chinese market will reach 55.7%.
On the one hand, automobiles are currently one of the fastest growing industries in greenhouse gas emissions, and the number of cars in mainland China has exceeded 300 million, and energy conservation and emission reduction have a long way to go; on the other hand, from the perspective of energy utilization efficiency, the energy conversion efficiency of fuel cells is 2-3 times that of internal combustion engines.
The potential market size is huge, energy conservation and emission reduction benefits are significant, it can be said that FCV is the best breakthrough in the hydrogen energy economy, which has been agreed by all walks of life.
The disagreement is whether the focus of the FCV is on commercial vehicles or passenger cars. In view of the dismal reality that domestic FCV passenger cars have been struggling for many years, many people believe that "FCV is only suitable for commercial vehicles, not suitable for passenger cars".
A hydrogen fuel cell heavy truck for a modern car driving on a mountain road in Switzerland. The average cost of fuel cell systems for commercial vehicles is lower, while the driving route and running time of commercial vehicles are relatively fixed, and it is relatively easy to build supporting hydrogen refueling stations, so it is correct for FCVs to choose the development model of commercial vehicles first, but this does not mean that FCVs are not suitable for passenger cars.
Li Heyuan, president of Hyundai Motor Group (China), put forward a different point of view at the "China Electric Vehicle 100 People's Meeting", proposing to strengthen the popularity of hydrogen fuel passenger cars, because this can "improve the acceptance of hydrogen energy in society, so that upstream and downstream enterprises in the industrial chain can quickly reduce costs through scale effects, and create a virtuous cycle structure in which enterprises spontaneously participate in the market".
Sincerely!
At present, it is indeed a fact that FCV is developing better in the field of commercial vehicles, and at this stage of too few hydrogen refueling stations and too high fuel cell system costs, FCV is the right choice to take the development model of "commercial vehicle first", but we cannot misjudge the cause and effect and draw the strange conclusion that FCV is only suitable for commercial vehicles!
Whether it is the cost of FCV or the problem of infrastructure, it can only be solved in the process of continuous expansion of industrial scale. Relative to passenger cars, the market size of commercial vehicles is too small, only in the field of passenger cars popularization, FCV can quickly form a scale effect, in order to get rid of the dependence on policies as soon as possible, in order to truly become a market.
In fact, whether it's the hyundai NEXO, Toyota's MIRAI, or the upcoming BMW iX5 Hydrogen, it's all been proven that fuel cell systems are perfectly suited for passenger cars.
Taking NEXO as an example, the car has a comprehensive working life of more than 800 kilometers under the NEDC standard and excellent air purification ability, and the only discharge during the driving process is water, which truly achieves zero pollution and zero emissions. And it takes only 5 minutes to fill hydrogen fuel at a time, which is completely comparable to fuel vehicles in terms of driving range and energy replenishment speed, and is known as the "ultimate environmental protection travel solution" model.
Further than Toyota and BMW, Hyundai Motor Group plans to introduce the hydrogen fuel SUV Hyundai NEXO into China in the form of imported cars in 2022, which will be the only hydrogen fuel cell SUV that can be bought in the Chinese market at present, and truly realize the demonstration operation of hydrogen fuel passenger cars in the Chinese market.
Hyundai NEXO China has become the first hydrogen fuel cell passenger car in the Chinese market that users can purchase, license and legally get on the road.
3
Hydrogen refueling stations are the key to the ecology of hydrogen energy applications
Now that the development plan of hydrogen energy has been established, the policy has been established, and the FCV technology has been quite mature, the only "card point" is that there are still too few hydrogen refueling stations.
Hydrogen energy economy is a systematic project, the "Planning" clearly states that by 2035, a hydrogen energy industry system will be formed, and a diversified hydrogen energy application ecology covering transportation, energy storage, industry and other fields will be built.
Hydrogen refueling stations are a key link in the hydrogen energy system, and Sinopec has announced plans to build 1,000 hydrogen refueling stations across the country during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period.
In this "hydrogen energy application ecology", the hydrogen refueling station is the most critical link, there is no hydrogen refueling station, consumers have nowhere to hydrogen, FCV is good, no matter how cheap no one will buy.
BEV has achieved explosive growth in recent years, and a large number of public charging facilities have been built in previous years; in the same way, if the FCV industry wants to develop, it must build hydrogen refueling stations first.
According to the "Blue Book on the Infrastructure Development of China's Hydrogen Energy Industry", by 2030, 1,000 hydrogen refueling stations will be built in China. The real speed may be much faster than this, and Sinopec alone will build 1,000 hydrogen refueling stations during the "14th Five-Year Plan" (2021-2025), declaring that it will "make hydrogen refueling as convenient as refueling".
But in Li Heyuan's view, China's hydrogen refueling station construction speed should also be faster. "Actively expand the construction of hydrogen refueling stations, especially to accelerate the layout of hydrogen refueling stations in large and medium-sized cities, highways, transportation and logistics hubs." He appealed at the "China Electric Vehicle 100 People's Meeting".
According to the planning of the Guangdong Provincial Development and Reform Commission, by 2030, the province will "build more than 300 hydrogen refueling stations", and the planning of Guangzhou city is to "build more than 100 hydrogen refueling stations", at that time, ordinary consumers can indeed do "hydrogen refueling and refueling as convenient".
HTWO Guangzhou is Hyundai Motor Group's first overseas hydrogen fuel cell system production and sales base.
Probably also to see the local government's great determination to develop the hydrogen energy economy, Hyundai Motor Group's first overseas hydrogen fuel cell system production and sales base - "HTWO Guangzhou" settled in Guangzhou in January 2021, the factory covers an area of 207,000 square meters, is expected to be officially completed in the second half of this year, the initial plan is to produce 6,500 sets of hydrogen fuel cell systems per year, and will expand production and supply capacity in a timely manner according to the Needs of the Chinese market and policies. This is also the first large-scale hydrogen fuel cell system production plant in China.
It is estimated that by 2030, the total investment of HTWO Guangzhou will reach 8.5 billion yuan (including plant operating expenses), becoming the world's top hydrogen energy technology plant. It will be built into a comprehensive base including a hydrogen fuel cell stack plant, a hydrogen fuel cell system production plant, an R&D center, and an innovation center.
The discussion of electricity or hydrogen never ends, and perhaps there is no need to cling to choosing only one. Hyundai Motor's solution is the "electricity + hydrogen" two-line strategy, put forward the "hydrogen energy vision 2040", the FCEV covers the passenger car, bus, commercial trucks in the comprehensive field at the same time, Hyundai Motor is also developing hybrid, plug-in hybrid, pure electric products, in its E-GMP pure electric platform based on the creation of IONIQ series models, in South Korea and Europe and the United States market has received a good response.
Hyundai Motor Group implements the "electricity + hydrogen" two-line strategy in China.
Editor's Note:
What ushered in the spring of FCV is not a "plan", but the most determined persistence
20 years ago, the entire automotive industry is engaged in FCV, after 10 years of frenzy, many manufacturers have withdrawn from this rank, later, even the original firm "hydrogen faction" - General Motors, Mercedes-Benz, Honda have suspended the research and development of FCV, has been firmly optimistic about the FCV industry Of international auto giants only Left Hyundai and Toyota, of course, recently BMW and other rejoined.
Last year, the sudden large-scale power curtailment in many parts of the country highlighted that pure electric vehicles simply cannot solve the crisis of our energy supply system; the Russian-Ukrainian conflict and soaring international oil prices tell us that energy security is far more fragile than we expected.
As a result, hydrogen energy has received unprecedented attention, the concept of fuel cells has become hot again, and the market prospects of FCVs seem to have been presented in front of every ordinary person.
However, the hydrogen energy society will not be achieved overnight, will not suddenly blossom, it needs the government's strong support, the need for long-term development strategy, the need to work hard, the need for open cooperation, but the most important thing is that it needs long-term, sustained and firm investment.
Hyundai's FCV, Toyota's dual engine, BYD's plug-and-mix, Tesla's pure electricity, they can become leaders in their respective fields, all because of this dedication.
Text | DA Bin
(This article is the author's personal opinion only and does not represent the position of DearAuto.) )
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Mr. Li Guoyong of Guangdong Green Law Firm