New Path, Hydrogen Fuel Cell Industry May Have an Explosion!
Since the beginning of this year, from the national level to the local level, policies supporting the hydrogen energy industry have been introduced, leading to an explosion in the hydrogen fuel cell industry. With the increasing maturity of relevant technologies, breakthroughs in commercial applications, and gradual implementation, there is potential for establishing a complementary development model for fuel cell electric vehicles and lithium-ion battery electric vehicles.
Shanghai proposes to build about 70 hydrogen refueling stations of various types by 2025, the number of fuel cell vehicles exceeds 10,000, and the hydrogen energy industry chain’s industrial scale exceeds 100 billion yuan. Shandong proposes to promote 10,000 fuel cell vehicles and build 100 hydrogen refueling stations by 2025. Liaoning proposes to have more than 2,000 fuel cell vehicles (including buses, passenger cars, heavy-duty trucks, tractors, sanitation trucks, etc.), and more than 30 hydrogen refueling stations by 2025.
Recently, many regions have introduced policies or measures related to hydrogen energy, supporting the development of the hydrogen fuel cell industry.
2022 will be the year of the hydrogen energy and fuel cell industry explosion. What is the difference between hydrogen fuel cells and widely-used lithium-ion batteries? Are hydrogen fuel cells another path for new energy vehicles?
“Lithium-ion batteries store electricity, and hydrogen fuel cells generate electricity”
Hydrogen energy is a secondary energy source with abundant sources, low-carbon and green, and wide applications, gradually becoming one of the important carriers for global energy transformation. Reporters have noticed that the policies supporting the hydrogen fuel cell industry in many regions all mention “low-carbon.”
“Simply put, lithium-ion batteries store electricity, and hydrogen fuel cells generate electricity.” Ruan Yiliang, the marketing director of Unenergy Technology Co., Ltd., which focuses on the marketization of hydrogen fuel cell technology, said that hydrogen fuel cells mainly rely on the chemical reaction between hydrogen and oxygen in the air to generate electricity and drive the motor to make the car run. The entire cycle process generally only emits water, achieving “zero carbon emissions.”
Pure electric vehicles with lithium-ion batteries installed on the market have problems such as short cruising range, obvious impact by low-temperature environments, and slow charging. Ruan Yiliang stated that compared with lithium-ion batteries, hydrogen fuel cells have advantages such as high efficiency, environmental protection, strong environmental tolerance, and short refueling time, which can better meet the requirements of long cruising range, high-temperature, and cold environments.
However, there are still concerns in the market about the safety of hydrogen fuel cells, high production costs, and the scarcity of raw materials such as the metal platinum.
“The hydrogen fuel cell system already has relatively complete safety control measures.” Ruan Yiliang believes. For production costs, he did some calculations: currently, the cost of fuel cell stacks can be controlled to an average of less than 2,000 yuan/kW. With the acceleration of scale effects and domestication processes, it is expected that by 2025, fuel cell costs can be controlled to below 1,000 yuan/kW.
Heavy-duty hydrogen energy vehicles became a breakthrough in commercial applications.
Last year, Shanghai, Beijing, Guangdong, Henan, and Hebei were successively listed as the national fuel cell vehicle demonstration application city clusters. It is estimated that by 2025, the five city clusters will promote more than 32,000 fuel cell vehicles. Data shows that in the first half of the year, the production of fuel cell vehicles exceeded 1,500 vehicles, and sales were also close to 1,400 vehicles, exceeding 80% of the total production and sales of the previous year. On the one hand, this is due to the support policies of various places being successively implemented; on the other hand, it is due to relevant supporting upgrades, such as the opening of dedicated hydrogen fuel vehicle operation lines in some regions, and the improvement of infrastructure such as hydrogen refueling stations. In the field of new energy, due to the fact that compared with lithium batteries, hydrogen fuel cells can better meet the environmental requirements of long endurance, high temperature, and high cold, the heavy-duty trucks with high load, long endurance, and high efficiency demands have become the breakthrough in the commercial application of hydrogen fuel cells.
According to Ruan Yiliang, hydrogen-powered heavy trucks have very obvious environmental advantages compared to traditional diesel heavy trucks. Compared with pure electric heavy trucks, hydrogen-powered heavy trucks have advantages such as short refueling time and long endurance, and there is basically no need to consider the “winter endurance anxiety” problem. In March, the National Development and Reform Commission and the National Energy Administration jointly issued the “Medium and Long-term Development Plan for the Hydrogen Energy Industry (2021-2035)” (hereinafter referred to as the “Plan”), which proposed to focus on promoting the application of hydrogen fuel cell medium and heavy-duty vehicles based on local hydrogen supply capacity, industrial environment, and market space and other basic conditions, combined with the development characteristics of the road transport industry.
Unisplendour Energy, backed by Great Wall Motors, has entered the national fuel cell vehicle demonstration application city clusters such as Beijing and Hebei, and has laid out multiple demonstration projects, including 100 hydrogen-powered heavy trucks on the “Rongyi Line” in Xiong’an New Area, Beijing Xinfadi agricultural product logistics, Tianjin hydrogen-powered green logistics transportation, etc. Among them, the 100 hydrogen-powered heavy trucks on the “Rongyi Line” have landed, which is the first large-scale intelligent networked, vehicle-road coordination, and convoy driving demonstration application scene of hydrogen-powered heavy trucks in China. Data shows that in 2021, China’s hydrogen-powered heavy truck sales reached 779 units, a year-on-year increase of 42 times, and its share of the new energy heavy truck market rose from 0.7% in 2020 to 7.46%. According to incomplete statistics, at least 16 hydrogen-powered heavy truck projects and application demonstrations have landed nationwide this year.