Lu Bingbing, general manager of Shanghai Jie Hydrogen Technology Co., Ltd
Whether it is the notice of fuel cell vehicle demonstration application issued by the five ministries and commissions in September 2020, the official approval of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, Shanghai and Guangdong as the first batch of fuel cell vehicle demonstration application city clusters in August 2021, or the end of 2021, the five ministries and commissions of the state issued a document again to start a new batch of fuel cell vehicle demonstration application work, Hebei and Henan Province were selected as demonstration city clusters, and everyone's demands ultimately boiled down to one point: the energy attributes of hydrogen.
Until March 23, the National Development and Reform Commission and the National Energy Administration jointly issued the "Medium and Long-term Plan for the Development of hydrogen energy industry (2021-2035)", which proposes that by 2025, there will be about 50,000 fuel cell vehicles and a number of hydrogen refueling stations will be deployed.
"The most important thing in this planning is to determine the properties of hydrogen as an energy source. After the energy attributes are determined, the following things can be done based on the top-level design. Lu Bingbing, general manager of Shanghai Jie Hydrogen Technology Co., Ltd., said in an interview with titanium media App.
In the future, the hydrogen energy industry will be the next "lithium battery"
According to statistics, in the first quarter of this year, a total of 18 hydrogen energy industry-related policies were introduced at the national level, more than half of last year.
The sudden rise of policy heat has stirred up ripples in the industry. Hydrogen fuel cells have become another imaginative track after lithium batteries. Some research institutions expect that the market size of China's hydrogen fuel cell industry will reach 23 billion yuan by 2023.
But Lu Bingbing also understands that the development of the industry is a systematic project, which requires each link to arch forward a little bit, "the future is very bright, but the actual road is still quite tortuous", but after a certain scale, it is as acceptable as lithium batteries.
So, how long does it take to "arch" to see more bright lights in the industry? In the case of the lithium battery industry, although the policy of demonstration promotion was introduced in 2009, the industry really started from around 2017, and experienced a period of slow development for nearly a decade in the middle.
Lu Bingbing has mentioned a point in time on many occasions - 2025. In his view, in some application scenarios at that time, the TCO (vehicle cost of the entire life cycle) of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles will be comparable to that of fuel vehicles. Now the cost of fuel cells is falling at a rate of 20% or 30% per year, and its cost will drop sharply by 2025, and the industry will further mature in 2030.
In summary, according to the 14th Five-Year Plan, by 2025, the network of hydrogen refueling stations will be greatly improved; the technical iteration and cost of upstream hydrogen production, hydrogen storage, hydrogen transportation, and hydrogenation will be reduced, and the synchronization of fuel cell parts and components products will also be reduced; the policy of "fuel cell vehicle demonstration application" of the five ministries and commissions will drive the development of the industry, including air compressors, hydrogen circulation pumps, carbon paper, catalysts, proton exchange membranes, etc. There will be head enterprises in each segment, which is conducive to forming a healthy industrial pattern; core materials, parts, and processes Equipment, testing instruments, etc. have all been localized and replaced within a few years, and the cost has dropped significantly; the improvement of upstream and downstream related laws and regulations is more conducive to the development of the industry.
Lu Bingbing predicted that by 2030, the number of domestic hydrogen refueling stations will exceed 1,000. At present, the number of hydrogen refueling stations is more than 250, and this number has been on the rise.
With the continuous expansion of the scale of the hydrogen energy industry, the continuous decline in costs, and the continuous improvement of laws and regulations, infrastructure, etc., the hydrogen energy industry has become the next "lithium battery", which is entirely possible.
Of course, there are also people who are worried that the hydrogen energy industry relies too much on the "award in lieu of compensation" policy, which will lead to the contraction of the industry after the ebb tide of the "award in lieu of compensation" policy in the later period, and Lu Bingbing believes that the entire enterprise should continue to develop, and the cost reduction will definitely be faster than the ebb and flow of the incentive policy. Similar to the development of the lithium battery industry, the purpose of policy incentives is for the better and faster development of the industry.
From green electricity to green hydrogen
As the most potential clean energy, hydrogen energy is also an important starting point for achieving the goal of double carbon. However, not all hydrogen energy is zero carbon, and only the "green hydrogen" produced from green electricity obtained from renewable energy can achieve zero carbonization.
At present, the vast majority of global hydrogen production is "gray hydrogen" and "blue hydrogen", 98% of the world's hydrogen is "gray hydrogen", and "green hydrogen" and "blue hydrogen" account for 1% each.
The so-called "gray hydrogen" refers to hydrogen produced by self-heating reforming and other methods using fossil energy as raw materials, with higher carbon emissions; "blue hydrogen" is to process part of the carbon dioxide in the production process on the basis of gray hydrogen through carbon capture and other methods; only hydrogen produced by electrolysis of water from renewable energy sources is called "green hydrogen" because it is close to zero carbon emissions.
From green electricity to green hydrogen, Lu Bingbing believes that "the solution is both an energy problem and an environmental protection problem." In his view, China's green hydrogen industry will also be improved, and the overall policy orientation is also designed in this direction.
The China Hydrogen Energy Alliance predicts that by 2030, the size of China's hydrogen energy market is expected to reach 43 million tons, of which the proportion of "green hydrogen" will increase from 1% in 2019 to 10%, and the market size will increase by nearly 30 times.
However, at present, there are two main ways to electrolyze water to produce green hydrogen: alkaline electrolysis of water to hydrogen and proton exchange membrane (PEM) electrolysis of water to hydrogen. Lu Bingbing believes that the real challenge encountered at present is still in the process of hydrogen production, from the scale and overall cost, there is still room for further improvement and optimization.
Where is the potential for the future development of hydrogen energy?
Under the double carbon target, in addition to the source of hydrogen energy has become the focus of current attention, whether hydrogen fuel cells have the opportunity to enter passenger cars has also become the focus of industry controversy.
First Musk posted "Fuel Cells = Fool Cells" on social media (fuel cells = fool cells), and Volkswagen Group CEO Herbert Dies also said in an interview with Fortune: You will not see any hydrogen energy passenger cars.
In Lu Bingbing's view, whether it can be or cannot be on, the focus of the controversy is that the "electricity" mentioned by these two factions is not the same concept of "electricity".
"If the electricity in the current power grid is charged directly to the lithium battery car, it is actually very efficient, but if you convert it into hydrogen, and then use hydrogen to drive the car, this means that there is one more link, and one more loss, which is definitely not cost-effective." The green electricity we are talking about refers to the electricity that cannot be connected to the grid now. These electricity are made of hydrogen by electrolyzing water to produce hydrogen, so as to solve the problem that electricity cannot be stored in large quantities. Because hydrogen can be stored for a long time, it can also be transported over long distances in the case of large-scale. ”
Controversy is still there, but one fact is: how can hydrogen fuel cells achieve cost reduction? In general, the factors that drive vehicles to achieve cost reduction mainly include scale, localization rate, breakthroughs in process technology and materials, and the convergence of laws and regulations.
Compared to several other factors, the biggest factor here is definitely the size. Because scale can lead to further technological breakthroughs, investment is further increased, forming a positive virtuous circle.
But where is the scale? Compared with the market size of commercial vehicles and passenger cars, the real development potential of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles is still in passenger cars.
Lu Bingbing expects that from 2028 to 2030, hydrogen fuel cells will enter the passenger car field on a large scale. He analogously compared the development trend of lithium battery cars, although the subsidy is declining, but lithium battery cars into family cars has been unstoppable, last year's sales of more than 3.52 million, this year may reach 5.2 million, which is enough to prove that lithium battery cars can survive without subsidies and at the same time can achieve sustainable development.
Although the current hydrogen fuel cell has no advantage in cost compared with lithium batteries, Lu Bingbing believes that "until 2028-2030 or so, hydrogenation will be more convenient, hydrogen cost will be lower, and the hardware cost of fuel cell stacks and systems will be lower, and there will be opportunities to be applied to passenger cars." ”
At present, although the application focus of Jet Hydrogen Technology is still on commercial vehicles, the landing of passenger cars is also advancing. A hydrogen-powered MPV mass-produced by SAIC Maxus is equipped with the P390 fuel cell system independently developed by Jie Hydrogen Technology. During the year, Xiangdao Car Rental plans to use this model as a business-type online ride-hailing car, with Shanghai Hongqiao Transportation Hub as the center, conduct point-to-point travel services according to the different travel needs of customers, and carry out small-batch demonstration operation and promotion in Shanghai.
Lu Bingbing believes that compared with lithium batteries, hydrogen fuel cells still have two main advantages: on the one hand, the energy replenishment time is less, and the passenger car has a hydrogen refueling time of 3-5 minutes; on the other hand, the driving performance at low temperatures is better, without fear of severe cold, and can be quickly started in a -30 ° C environment.
"I personally believe that endurance is a false proposition for hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. People driving fuel vehicles have not actually paid attention to whether it is a 60-liter fuel tank or a 100-liter fuel tank, why don't you need to pay attention? Because the gas station is convenient enough. In the same way, when the later hydrogenation is convenient enough, in fact, the endurance will not be so concerned. Lu Bingbing said to the Titanium Media App.
The following is part of the dialogue content, compiled by titanium media editors, slightly deleted.
Titanium Media: Some industry insiders said that pure electric heavy trucks below 500 kilometers have basically achieved commercialization, leaving the market for hydrogen fuel cells only 800-1000 kilometers or more, what do you think about this? What are the needs of heavy trucks in different market segments?
Lu Bingbing: Although the proportion of heavy-duty truck production and sales is not high, due to heavy load and long operating time, its fuel consumption accounts for more than 30%, and particulate matter and NOX emissions account for 52% and 74% respectively. Due to the limited power density of lithium batteries, the attenuation of the mileage in the low-temperature environment is relatively serious, and the charging time is long, which is not suitable for heavy-duty long-endurance, and the fuel cell just makes up for the disadvantages of lithium batteries in the field of heavy-duty truck applications.
Therefore, the new round of fuel cell vehicle demonstration application promotion program to support heavy-duty freight models has a clear tendency, compared with passenger cars, buses, small and medium-sized commercial vehicles, the upper limit of the reward amount of heavy trucks is higher, and it will be one of the main models released during the demonstration period.
In the short term, fuel cell heavy trucks are mainly used in regional logistics, ports, coal, steel transportation and other scenarios, the next 3-5 years with the development of fuel cells, hydrogen system related technologies, as well as the improvement of hydrogen refueling stations and other related infrastructure, fuel cell heavy trucks will gradually open up long-distance logistics market opportunities, to meet the special line logistics, express transportation, resource transportation and other segments of market demand.
Titanium Media: Is the application of hydrogen fuel cells in passenger cars and commercial vehicles a big difference in technology?
Lu Bingbing: At present, the difference is relatively not so big.
Like toyota Mirai's technology, which is used for both passenger cars and commercial vehicles, it may be that the control strategy and voltage platform of the terminal application are different, but the hardware is still similar.
In fact, we are also taking this route, based on a technology platform, will develop a variety of systems, the application focus of the system is not the same, it is equivalent to the engine calibration method is not the same, but the basic technology platform is still a.
Different systems based on our M4 stack platform that we will mass-produce this year can be used for different models and application scenarios.
Titanium Media: In October last year, Jie Hydrogen Technology held a new product launch conference and launched the latest battery stack platform and battery system, can you disclose the current application of these products?
Lu Bingbing: In October last year, we released the M4 stack platform and three products of M4H, P4H and P4L, which can be said to basically cover the application scenarios of passenger cars and commercial vehicles. Among them, the development of passenger cars has completed the delivery of the first batch of fuel cell systems and is in the stage of installation and adjustment verification of the first round of prototypes.
Commercial vehicle development is different from passenger cars, the development cycle of models is relatively short, mostly using order-driven business models, in order to meet the different needs of fuel cell commercial vehicles in the national demonstration city cluster, Jet Hydrogen Technology is simultaneously developing light cold chain vehicles, medium and heavy logistics vehicles, heavy dump trucks and group buses.
Titanium Media: On the official website of Jet Hydrogen Technology, it is introduced that the company's core team comes from professional backgrounds such as "fuel cell + mass production vehicle", what advantages will this combination have in the process of product development?
Lu Bingbing: In this way, the existing mature research and development, manufacturing, application, after-sales concepts, practices of the automobile industry and hydrogen energy and fuel cells can be organically combined with the products, technologies and processes of hydrogen energy and fuel cells, so that we can take fewer detours in industrialization. Now it is no longer a small fight in the laboratory, but a large-scale and mass production. The combination of the two is like a tiger adding wings.
(This article was first published on Titanium Media App, author/Zhang Min, Han Jingxian, editor/Zhang Min)