China could ramp up government support for hydrogen and fuel-cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) if a raft of proposals tabled at recent agenda-setting parliamentary meetings are passed into law. These include the expansion of FCEV urban demonstration clusters—of which there are five in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, Shanghai, Guangdong and Henan—to cover additional cities and the creation of a national research platform for hydrogen storage and transportation.

The proposals came from a number of delegates who attended the 14th sessions of the National People’s Congress (NPC) and Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC). The meetings—known locally as the “two sessions” and which concluded on 13 March—are the most important events on China's political calendar and elaborately choreographed. Delegate proposals are only occasionally approved and progressed but can provide a sense of which issues are of concern to the public, and within specific industries and regions.

100,000-200,000t/yr – China’s 2025 green hydrogen production target

At this year’s two sessions, the most plausible hydrogen-related ideas revolved around strengthening policy support and accelerating large-scale development of hydrogen.

China set a national target of 100,000—200,000t/yr of green hydrogen production by 2025 to reduce emissions. But further policy planning at the central government level is needed, especially when it comes to the top-level design of green hydrogen projects, according to Zhang Qingsheng, an executive director at Sinopec’s Zhongyuan Oilfield subsidiary. Sinopec has recently announced it plans to expand on a 2.5MW proton-exchange-membrane electrolyser demonstration project at Zhongyuan Oilfield by building a 4,500 green hydrogen facility within five years.

Zhang Guoqiang, an NPC deputy and chairman of Shanghai-listed fuel-cell engine manufacturer Beijing Sinohytec, argues that, while green hydrogen should be promoted, scaling up hydrogen throughout the economy will require a diverse supply mix. Efforts should therefore be made to integrate output from fossil fuels or as an industrial byproduct, he adds.

Uncovering bottlenecks

The two sessions were also a platform for industry insiders to draw the attention of policymakers to challenges restricting progress. “At present, there are still many technical bottlenecks in the hydrogen industry chain,” Bu Rixin, general manager of consultancy Chuangdao Investment Consulting, told media on the sidelines of the NPC.

“We cannot rely on transportation applications alone to achieve breakthroughs,” he says, arguing that industries such as steelmaking, cement and aluminium represent a much bigger market opportunity. “We can promote the industrial and transportation markets together, and improve the technological maturity of hydrogen production, storage and utilisation,” Bu adds.

“For a long time, there has been no unified plan, model and standard for the industrialisation of hydrogen energy in China,” says Wang Chikun, managing partner of investment firm Jianggen Capital. “The duplicated and incorrect construction during industrialisation nationwide to date is serious and has resulted in a huge waste of resources. In light of this, the industrialisation of hydrogen energy and commercialisation of FCEVs should be planned together, with unified standards and coordinated implementation, in order to more easily form a healthy and orderly development situation.”

These challenges have not dampened investor and government enthusiasm in China for hydrogen. Some 20 companies listed on China’s main stock exchanges have diversified into hydrogen in the past two years—including top wind turbine manufacturer Goldwind and leading solar manufacturer Longi Green Energy.

Hydrogen is also gaining ground in regional government agendas. Each of mainland China’s 31 administrative regions held their own local gatherings of the NPC and CPPCC early this year in preparation for the two sessions. Local government work reports to outline important tasks for this year were released at each meeting—19 of the 31 regions mentioned hydrogen in their 2023 work reports compared with four in 2019, according to the China Hydrogen Alliance.

The provinces of Jilin, Hebei, Henan and Shanxi have flagged hydrogen in their local government work reports for each of the past five years, while the energy type has been mentioned in the reports of Inner Mongolia, Liaoning, Shaanxi and Chongqing for the past 3–4 years.

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Author: Shi Weijun