China goes green hydrogen

China joins the wave of green hydrogen that is increasingly attracting the attention of world economic powers. The Asian giant seeks to give a 180-degree turn to the country’s energy production by putting this new energy vector at the center of its strategy for 2025.

Beijing has noted that the country aims to produce between 100,000 and 200,000 tons of green hydrogen a year and have around 50,000 hydrogen-powered vehicles for that exercise, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) said in a statement.

With this decision, the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases seeks to meet its climate change targets. “The development of hydrogen is an important move for the energy transition and a great support for China’s carbon neutrality and peak carbon targets,” Wang Xiang, deputy director of the NDRC’s High-Tech Department, told a news conference.

Currently, China produces 33 million tons of hydrogen per year, although its origin is not entirely ‘green’. About 80% of the hydrogen comes from coal and natural gas, and the rest is mainly a byproduct of industrial sectors, according to the government. For its part, the ‘green’ importance of this energy vector grows to reach 500,000 tons from water electrolysis in 2019, according to China Hydrogen Alliance

Green hydrogen is gas produced from the decomposition of water in electrolysis using renewable energy sources, which reduces the amount of carbon emissions released during the process compared to hydrogen created from natural gas or coal. “The potential of green hydrogen is huge, as the country has the largest renewable energy capacity in the world,” Wang adds.

Significant growth

The NDRC statement said China aims to establish a complete hydrogen industry covering transportation, energy storage and industrial sectors, and “significantly improve” the share of green hydrogen in China’s energy consumption by 2035.

The China Hydrogen Alliance has estimated that China’s hydrogen demand will reach 35 million tons per year by 2030, up from 20 million tons today, and reach 60 million tons by 2050.

Hydrogen can be used in fuel cells and internal combustion engines. However, high production costs are one of the main obstacles preventing hydrogen development, according to Chinese authorities. Analysts estimate that hydrogen prices would have to be cut in half to compete with gasoline and diesel.

Source: ABC