Hydrogen energy has the characteristics of clean and efficient, wide range of sources, etc., is an effective carrier linking traditional petrochemical energy, electricity, renewable energy and other energy sources, is an important direction to promote the green and low-carbon development of the energy system, for optimizing the energy supply structure, building a modern energy system has important strategic significance, the development and utilization of hydrogen energy is the current global industrial innovation and energy transformation of the major strategic direction.
Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles have zero emission, high efficiency, long endurance, large load, fast refueling and other significant advantages, the development of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles in line with the mainland vehicle energy technology change and the needs of the transformation and upgrading of the automobile industry, is to promote the deep integration and coordinated development of energy and automobile industry, and jointly implement the national "double carbon" strategic goals of an important path.
In recent years, under the guidance of national and local industrial policies, the enthusiasm for investment in the hydrogen energy industry has been high, the whole industrial chain system of production, storage, transportation and addition has been continuously improved, the technical level of fuel cell products has continued to improve, and the mainland fuel cell vehicles are rapidly moving from technology research and development to commercial development stage.
The national fuel cell vehicle demonstration application policy clearly puts forward that the focus is on promoting the industrialization of fuel cell vehicles in the field of medium and long-distance, medium and heavy commercial vehicles, actively implementing the "double carbon" goal in the transportation industry, the clear policy of fuel cell vehicle demonstration city cluster, the thousand-level demonstration application of the Beijing Winter Olympics, and the development of commercial vehicles to specialization, hydrogen fuel cell special vehicles, as an important part of fuel cell vehicles, are ushering in unprecedented development opportunities.
1
2021 Market Review
The market is picking up significantly (Figure 1). By the end of 2021, the cumulative promotion of fuel cell vehicles in the mainland is nearly 9,000, and from the perspective of market development stage, fuel cell vehicles are still in the early stage of industrial development, and the market size is still relatively small. In 2021, the sales volume of fuel cell vehicles in the mainland was 1881, an increase of 25.7% year-on-year, and the models were mainly buses and special vehicles, and the sales of fuel cell special vehicles were 830, accounting for 44.1%, and the market share showed a rebound trend.
Figure 1 The trend and structure of the fuel cell vehicle market in mainland China in recent years
Remarks: The data source is the sales data of China Automobile, and the fuel cell special vehicles include tractors, dumps, logistics and sanitation vehicles
The policy-driven effect is prominent. According to the national financial subsidy policy for the promotion and application of new energy vehicles, before April 2020, fuel cell vehicles enjoy purchase subsidies, and in September 2020, the five ministries and commissions of the state issued the "Notice on Carrying out The Demonstration Application of Fuel Cell Vehicles", adjusting the purchase subsidy policy for fuel cell vehicles to the demonstration application support policy, setting a four-year demonstration period, and adopting the method of "replacing compensation with awards" to reward the industrialization of key technologies of fuel cell vehicles and demonstration applications in eligible urban agglomerations.
After the release of the policy, all localities actively formed teams to actively apply for demonstration city clusters, and after expert review, until the end of August 2021, the Ministry of Finance and other five ministries and commissions agreed to the first batch of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, Shanghai, Guangdong fuel cell vehicle demonstration application city clusters to start implementation. In December of the same year, the Hebei and Henan urban agglomerations were approved and launched for implementation, and the five demonstration urban agglomerations that were widely concerned by the industry were finally landed.
Because the purchase price of fuel cell vehicles is still high, subsidies have played an important supplement to the purchase cost, policy adjustments have caused more than a year of gap periods since April 2020, resulting in car companies and application-side entities have been in a wait-and-see situation, affecting the enthusiasm of local governments to promote fuel cell vehicles and the pace of enterprise products, until the second half of 2021, the market demand will gradually be released, the monthly sales performance of the market throughout the year shows a trend of low before and after high, gradually warming up, and the policy-driven market has obvious characteristics.
2
Product availability
The model structure was further expanded. In 2021, the number of enterprises laying out fuel cell vehicles has increased significantly, and traditional mainstream commercial vehicle companies have accelerated the research and development and testing application of fuel cell products, and the number of newly announced models has increased significantly. Different from the model structure of the previous logistics vehicle, the fuel cell special vehicle model structure in 2021 will be mainly tractors and dump trucks, accounting for 86% of sales (Figure 2). Logistics vehicle models are further enriched, covering short-distance transfer and urban distribution models such as van transport vehicles, thermal insulation vehicles, refrigerated trucks, etc.; sanitation vehicles are mainly used for sporadic testing and verification applications such as washing sweepers, sprinkler trucks, multi-functional dust suppression vehicles, and unloadable garbage trucks. With the continuous maturity of fuel cell technology and the continuous excavation of application scenarios, the trend of fuel cell vehicle models expanding into the field of special vehicle segments is obvious.
Figure 2 Sales volume of fuel cell special vehicle terminal market segments in Mainland China in 2021 (units)
The development of heavy duty has achieved remarkable results. From the perspective of enterprise product supply, the proportion of fuel cell heavy-duty models has increased significantly, and the 208 fuel cell vehicles listed in the 12th "New Energy Vehicle Promotion and Application Recommended Model Catalog" issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology in 2021 are listed on the list of 138 special vehicles, accounting for 66.3%, and the total mass is 12t and above 100 models, accounting for 72.5% of the number of special vehicles. Among them, there are 93 models of more than 18t and 37 models of tractors. From the perspective of the total mass tonnage structure of the actual sales models of the terminal, the tonnage structure of the fuel cell special vehicle is constantly enriched, expanding in the direction of diversification, and the hydrogen fuel cell heavy truck has begun to become the mainstream, and the total proportion of 18t, 25t and 31t heavy-duty models has reached more than 90%. (Figure 3).
Figure 3 In recent years, the tonnage structure trend of fuel cell special vehicle models in mainland China
Industrial layout and specific scenarios drive the terminal market. In 2021, the terminal sales of fuel cell special vehicles are mainly concentrated in Qingdao, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Baoding and other cities, mainly in Qingdao urban slag transportation, Baowu Steel Yard transportation, Guangzhou Huangpu District construction waste transportation, Baoding "easy line" sand and gravel aggregate transportation and other scenario applications (Figure 4). Different from the early promotion model of pure electric vehicles, fuel cell system companies have played an important role in the market promotion and target scenario selection of fuel cell vehicles.
Therefore, at present, the main sales area of fuel cell vehicles is also a hydrogen energy industry chain and system manufacturer agglomeration area, which reflects the benign synergy effect of industrial development and demonstration applications. Judging from the sales volume of terminal cities in recent years, due to the small market size, terminal sales depend on the new order demand and the delivery of existing orders in the current year, and have not yet shown obvious or differentiated typical regional market characteristics.
Figure 4 Distribution of key cities for fuel cell special vehicle sales in mainland China in 2021 (units)
The technical level of products continues to improve. In recent years, the technical level of fuel cell special vehicles has improved significantly, mainly in the continuous improvement of fuel cell system power, and the matching idea of "small stack + large lithium battery" has been reversed. Haizhuo Power, Xiongchuan Hydrogen Energy, Yihuatong, Shanghai Remodeling, Jie Hydrogen Technology, Weichai Power, Hongli Hydrogen, State Power Investment, Weishi Energy and other representative enterprises have launched high-power fuel cell systems. In 2021, the average rating of the fuel cell special vehicle bicycle system sold reached 106kW (the average in 2021 was 48kW), the 31t heavy truck was generally equipped with a fuel cell system of 120kW and above, the system rated power density was generally higher than 300W/kg, and the mileage of most fuel cell special vehicles reached more than 450km, and mainstream commercial vehicle companies actively carried out research and development and testing of 70MPa on-board hydrogen storage technology, and the technical level of fuel cell special vehicles was significantly improved.
3
2022 market development situation and outlook
3.1 The policy environment will continue to improve
After the "double carbon" strategic goal of the mainland was proposed, the strategic significance of developing the hydrogen energy industry was elevated to a new strategic height. In October 2021, hydrogen energy was mentioned many times in the two major policies of the "Opinions of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council on The Complete, Accurate and Comprehensive Implementation of the New Development Concept to Do a Good Job in Carbon Peaking and Carbon Neutrality" and the "Carbon Peak Action Plan before 2030", involving the development of the whole industrial chain of hydrogen energy, the construction of hydrogen refueling stations, and the research and development and application of key technologies.
On March 23, 2022, the "Medium and Long-term Planning for the Development of hydrogen energy industry (2021-2035)" was officially released, pointing out that hydrogen energy is an important part of the future energy system, an important carrier for the realization of green and low-carbon transformation of energy terminals, and an important development direction for strategic emerging industries and future industrial development and development, which points out the direction for the development of the hydrogen energy industry in the mainland, and at the same time clarifies the development goals of each stage in the future, and deploys important measures to promote the high-quality development of the hydrogen energy industry. And the transportation field as the focus of diversified demonstration applications, pointed out that the focus is to promote the application of hydrogen fuel cells in heavy and medium-heavy vehicles, orderly expand the application space of the bus and truck markets, and gradually establish a complementary development model for fuel cell electric vehicles and lithium battery pure electric vehicles.
In addition, hydrogen energy and fuel cell vehicles have been successively proposed in the national "14th Five-Year Plan", new energy vehicle industry planning, green and low-carbon recycling industry development, energy policy, new energy storage and other national industrial guidance policies, which are considered to be an important direction for the development of strategic emerging industries and an important path to promote the green and low-carbon transformation of the energy system. The national hydrogen energy policy orientation has gradually pointed out the direction for industrial development and effectively promoted the healthy and orderly development of the industry.
At the same time, the domestic release of hydrogen energy and fuel cell vehicle industry policy of local governments further increased, according to the incomplete statistics of the china automobile data hydrogen energy research team, in 2021, a total of more than 40 thematic policies were issued in various parts of the country, covering industrial planning, implementation opinions, action plans, demonstration applications and hydrogen refueling station management, etc., reflecting that local governments are focusing on solving problems and enterprise demands in local industrial development and demonstration applications, and creating a good policy environment conducive to industrial development.
3.2 The demonstration effect of large-scale activities has aroused concern
Participating in major international events and providing transportation services has always been the tradition of fuel cell vehicle demonstration operation. In February 2022, in the process of holding the Beijing Winter Olympic Games, in order to practice the green Olympic Games and help "carbon neutrality", nearly 1,000 fuel cell vehicles participated in the demonstration operation to provide transportation support services for this major international sports event, the Winter Olympics is the first large-scale use of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles in China, and it is also the world's largest fuel cell vehicle regulation demonstration operation, in the strict reliability requirements and low temperature operation environment, fuel cell vehicles have withstood the test, It fully demonstrates the maturity and application potential of hydrogen energy technology, which is of great demonstration significance for the construction of a low-carbon transportation system. Under the "double carbon" goal, taking the Green Winter Olympics as an opportunity, mainland fuel cell vehicles will enter a new period of development opportunities.
3.3 An independent and controllable complete industrial chain has been basically completed
Domestic enterprises actively carry out hydrogen energy and fuel cell vehicle industry chain layout, at present, one-third of the domestic central enterprises, more than 118 listed companies involved in the hydrogen energy industry, the industrial chain of each link of the enterprise a total of more than 2,000, and in the field of key components of fuel cell vehicles formed a number of leading enterprises, fuel cell technology rapid progress, fuel cell system high power, integration trend is obvious, stacks, air compressors, hydrogen circulation systems, vehicle hydrogen storage system technology level greatly improved, domestic membrane electrodes, Bipolar plates have achieved large-scale operation, and core materials such as proton exchange membranes and catalysts have been loaded into vehicles and have the ability to supply in batches. The domestic independent and controllable hydrogen energy and fuel cell vehicle industry chain has basically taken shape, providing an important guarantee for large-scale and commercial demonstration applications.
3.4 The power system develops in the direction of high power
Hydrogen energy heavy trucks have obvious advantages such as large load, long endurance, and fast hydrogenation, and are considered to be an important alternative to carbon reduction in the field of electrification in the field of heavy trucks. After the demonstration and application policy of fuel cell vehicles is clarified, the development direction of commercial vehicles as the key development direction has become a consensus, the layout process of domestic mainstream commercial vehicle enterprises for medium and heavy fuel cell special vehicles has gradually accelerated, FAW Jiefang, Dongfeng Commercial Vehicle, China National Heavy Duty Truck, Shaanxi Automobile Heavy Truck, Foton Automobile, SAIC Hongyan, Sany Heavy Industry, Feichi Automobile, Jiangling Tong Automobile, XCMG Group, Dayun Automobile, Hanma Technology, Geely Commercial Vehicle and other enterprises have accelerated their investment, aiming at market segments and specific scenarios to actively carry out product development and product commercialization. It forms differentiated competition with heavy-duty trucks, focuses on promoting pure electric heavy-duty trucks in scenarios where it is difficult to apply and has a hydrogen source, takes the lead in application in specific scenarios, and explores ways to reduce the cost of TCO throughout the life cycle. According to the development trend of commercial vehicle specialization, as well as the demand for large load, long endurance and dedicated operation, it is expected that the rated power demand for fuel cell power systems for heavy-duty special vehicles will be further improved in 2022, and it will march to 200kW.
3.5 Rapid release of market demand
2022 is the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, Shanghai, Guangdong, Hebei, Henan five fuel cell vehicle demonstration group city to start the implementation of the key year, will usher in the first year of assessment, in the strength of the points reward policy, before the high and low, so the participating cities will vigorously carry out demonstration applications in the early stage of the demonstration cycle, in accordance with the implementation of the established target rhythm of vehicle launch, the focus of demonstration applications or commercial vehicles, bus field promotion space is limited, special vehicles are an important potential market, Therefore, the bidding and procurement demand for fuel cell special vehicles will be intensively released, and the sales volume of the market terminal will show a rapid growth trend.
Specific to the terminal application scenarios, with the application of high-power fuel cell systems, more transportation and operation scenarios can be satisfied, and the application scenarios characterized by heavy-duty steel logistics, mine logistics, park logistics, short-dump transportation, slag transportation, cold chain transportation, municipal sanitation and other "diesel to electricity" application scenarios will become hot areas.
In the next few years, five fuel cell vehicle city cluster demonstration, Shandong "hydrogen into ten thousand homes" and "Chengdu-Chongqing hydrogen corridor" and other key demonstration areas of the promotion and application process of nearly 50,000 fuel cell vehicles put into operation, diversified scene demand, the need for enterprises to provide different model types, power levels, tonnage structure of multi-dimensional fuel cell special vehicle product supply matrix, to meet the specific scene of customer demand in the terminal segmentation field, semi-trailer tractor, port tractor, slag transport vehicle, cold chain transport vehicle, municipal sanitation vehicle, Special models such as mining dump trucks and concrete mixer trucks have ushered in important development opportunities.
3.6 The construction process of hydrogen refueling stations has been significantly accelerated
In order to ensure the demonstration application of fuel cell vehicles, the construction process of hydrogen refueling stations in various places has been significantly accelerated, and by the end of 2021, according to the information released by the China Hydrogen Energy Alliance, the mainland has built more than 240 hydrogen refueling stations, an increase of 112 over 2020. The problem of insufficient number of hydrogen refueling stations is being alleviated, and the hydrogen energy industry planning and other guiding policies in many provinces and cities in China have taken the hydrogen refueling station construction and operation policy as an important content, and the approval, construction, operation and safety management policies of hydrogen refueling stations in the leading cities have provided useful reference and reference for other places to formulate hydrogen refueling station management policies and crack institutional and policy constraints.
With the implementation of fuel cell vehicle demonstration application policies, the construction of hydrogen refueling stations around the country generally maintains a moderately advanced layout situation, large energy companies have been involved in the construction of hydrogenation infrastructure networks, hydrogenation, refueling, charging and other joint construction stations will become the main construction mode, station construction and operation subsidies have enhanced the enthusiasm of business entities, it is expected that by 2025, the domestic construction of hydrogen refueling stations will reach more than 1,000, hydrogen fuel cell special vehicle hydrogenation demand will be effectively met.
3.7 Reduced acquisition and use costs
All along, the mainland fuel cell core materials and key components rely on imports, the market size is small, the cost of hydrogen energy supply is high, resulting in high cost of purchase and use of fuel vehicles, heavy truck-based special vehicle system power demand is high, hydrogen consumption is large, high price sensitivity, cost reduction demand is more urgent, cost reduction is of great practical significance for improving the enthusiasm of terminal applications.
Since 2020, with the localization rate of fuel cell core materials and key components of the system increasing year by year, driving the rapid cost reduction of the fuel cell industry chain, the price of stack products has been continuously lowered, mainstream manufacturers have dropped to less than 2000 yuan / kW, it is expected that the cost of fuel cell systems will be reduced by about 20% in 2022, and the cost reduction brought about by the scale effect of demonstration applications will become more and more obvious. At the same time, after the deep decarbonization potential of hydrogen energy, chemical, steel and other industries is concerned, the supply will show an upward trend, and the cost of supply will still have a large room for decline. In addition, the increase in the localization rate of hydrogen refueling station equipment can also drive the price of hydrogen filling at the station end to decline.
According to the national fuel cell vehicle demonstration application policy goals, by the end of the four-year demonstration period, the station-end hydrogen refueling price is less than 35 yuan / kg. In the short term, the promotion of fuel cell technology in the field of special vehicles still needs to highlight the benefits of carbon reduction and environmental protection, by 2025, it is expected that the purchase cost of fuel cell vehicles will be comparable to pure electric vehicles, and by 2030, the life cycle cost of fuel cell commercial vehicles will be comparable to that of traditional fuel vehicles.
4
epilogue
Under the guidance of the "double carbon" goal and the national hydrogen energy industry planning, the demonstration application policy is strongly driven, the upstream and downstream enterprises of the industrial chain are actively laid out, the industrial chain supply chain is constantly improving, the technical level of key components is constantly mature, the demand for diversified application scenarios is greatly released, the construction process of hydrogenation infrastructure is accelerated, and the cost of use is downward year by year, and other favorable factors, the mainland fuel cell vehicle market will grow rapidly and enter a period of large-scale demonstration application growth. 2022 is the concentrated release of the driving factors of the growth of the fuel cell vehicle market in the mainland, and it is expected that the annual sales of fuel cell vehicles will exceed 10,000, of which the sales of fuel cell special vehicles will reach more than 5,000.
Note: The article is from China Automotive Technology and Research Center Co., Ltd. China Automobile Data Co., Ltd., the author Wang Jianjian, Zhang Xiuli, Hu Chenshu, hereby thank you.
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