China is relying on hydrogen to help deliver what it claims will be the greenest Winter Olympics ever, treating the international sporting spectacle beginning on Friday as a springboard for building out the country’s hydrogen economy.

Chinese officials have touted the green credentials of the event taking place in Zhangjiakou, 160km northwest of Beijing, which the government has claimed will be the first Olympics to be completely powered by clean energy. China sees the event as an opportunity for the zero-carbon fuel to demonstrate its superiority over batteries in freezing environments and how fuel-cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) outperform conventional EVs in terms of refuelling and mileage.

Shell has already drawn attention to hydrogen’s presence at the Olympics after it launched a 20MW electrolyser on Friday that will supply green hydrogen to FCEVs shuttling athletes and spectators between venues. But this is only one aspect of the hydrogen value chain built by Beijing for the event.

State-owned automaker BAIC Group has deployed 515 FCEV buses equipped with batteries that can travel more than 400km before refuelling and withstand temperatures as low as -30°C. Each bus is expected to reduce CO₂ emissions by 115.72kg for every 200km travelled. The expectation is that the fleet will demonstrate the commercial potential of FCEVs—especially in northern China, where cold weather for much of the year can significantly cut the range of such vehicles.

515 – FCEV buses deployed by BAIC

Besides BAIC, manufacturers Yutong Bus, Zhongtong Bus and Geely Commercial Vehicle Group are also supplying hydrogen-powered FCEV buses for the Olympics. Fuelling them will be a network of more than 30 stations built by state-owned oil majors CNPC and Sinopec in addition to electricity generation firm State Power Investment Corp. CNPC has built four refuelling stations in the Winter Olympics area that will be able to supply 5,500kg every day during the event—enough to meet the demand of nearly 1,000 FCEVs.

With EVs cornering the passenger car market, hydrogen’s best bet at making inroads in China’s transport sector is seen in medium and heavy-duty, and medium and long-distance commercial vehicles. FCEVs have advantages over battery EVs in commercial scenarios as they can carry heavier loads and undertake longer journeys thanks to their shorter refuelling times and greater range.

China has more than 11mn heavy-duty trucks, offering a potentially vast market—green transport is needed in commercial vehicle categories ranging from long-distance coaches and port container lorries to mining dump trucks and intercity logistics.

Picking up the baton

China is picking up the baton from last year’s Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo, which the Japanese government billed as the ‘hydrogen Olympics’. For that event, Japan deployed a fleet of FCEVs, built dozens of refuelling stations across Tokyo and powered the athletes’ village with hydrogen-based electricity.

China has not yet released an explicit national clean hydrogen strategy, although an official five-year industry roadmap is expected to be published in the second half of this year. China is nevertheless already the world’s largest electrolyser market and is forecast by research firm BloombergNEF to account for up to two-thirds of global demand for the technology this year.

A sense of China’s national hydrogen strategy and priorities can also be gleaned from the individual industry development plans released by local governments. For instance, Beijing’s plan, released last August, calls for 5-8 enterprises with international prominence in the industry chain to be established by the end of next year, rising to 10-15 by 2025, and for the industrial scale of hydrogen in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region to reach RMB100bn ($15.7bn) by mid-decade.

Zhejiang, on China’s eastern seaboard, aims to have 5,000 FCEVs on its roads by 2025, served by a network of 50 refuelling stations. China had around 85 hydrogen fuel cell-related investment projects at the end of last year with a total investment of about RMB185.71bn, according to state media.

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Author: Shi Weijun