Accelerating hydrogen deployment in China would help the country go beyond its current decarbonisation commitments and increase the world’s chances of limiting the rise in global temperatures to 1.5 °C, according to a new IEA report.

China currently has a target to peak its emissions before 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality by 2060.

The country is already exploring decarbonisation through hydrogen. Sinopec plans to deploy 1,000 hydrogen refuelling stations by 2025, while the federal and state government are looking to assign five hydrogen demonstration regions.

While China has no current target for electrolyser deployment, 18MW of capacity has already been installed with a further 2GW under construction.

A new pathway set out by the International Energy Association (IEA) in its report, An Energy Sector Roadmap to Carbon Neutrality in China, expects the role of hydrogen and carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) to grow rapidly after 2030, in addition to energy efficiency and a reduction in coal use.

“This accelerated transition would put China’s CO₂ emissions into marked decline after 2025, opening up the possibility of China reaching carbon neutrality well before 2060,” says IEA executive director Fatih Birol.

Cutting emissions

Hydrogen and CCUS alone will cover 85pc of primary chemicals production in China by 2060, representing 40pc of cumulative emissions reductions that year in the scenario—some 16Gt of CO₂.

The biggest CO₂ reductions will come from industry, especially the chemical and steel sectors which account for more than 8Gt of CO₂ cut in the scenario.  The use of hydrogen and ammonia in shipping and synthetic kerosene in aviation can reduce emissions by 3Gt, and hydrogen in road transport a further 2Gt.

750GW – Electrolyser capacity required by 2060

The scenario requires the construction of 25GW of electrolysers by 2030 and 750GW by 2060, producing 31mn t/yr and 90mn t/yr respectively. Hydrogen will also account for 6pc of China’s energy demand by 2060.

The IEA expects 80pc of hydrogen produced in China to be green and 20pc blue by 2060.

“The time required to develop the infrastructure to transport and store the CO₂ and the fact that there are only two projects under development for hydrogen production with CCUS in China today means that production via those routes is unlikely to come online before 2030,” notes the report.

In contrast, the IEA notes that electrolysis has strong momentum in China with multiple projects currently under development.

“Existing plants that require hydrogen must consider the trade-offs between decarbonising their hydrogen supply using electrolytic hydrogen from renewables, or retrofitting fossil fuel production with CCUS,” the report says.  

“Factors such as proximity to good wind and solar resources and CO₂ storage sites, and the potential to create hubs with neighbouring plants will determine the most economic production route in each region.”

Connecting supply and demand

Hydrogen would provide a means of storing and transporting energy from regions with abundant renewable resources such as Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang to inland industrial clusters of demand such as Shaanxi and Chongqing.

But a lack of proton exchange membrane (PEM) manufacturers in China has pushed project developersto look for foreign manufacturers, according to the report.

“Alkaline designs are likely to remain the leading technology for dedicated hydrogen production for the foreseeable future in China since these companies are expanding rapidly their manufacturing capacity and have a good knowledge base to draw from,” it says.

The IEA also foresees the repurposing of the existing natural gas pipeline network to carry hydrogen and the development of new dedicated hydrogen pipelines.

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Author: Tom Young