Green hydrogen production will become the biggest beneficiary of the development of hydrogen energy industry in the future. According to the hydrogen insight jointly released by the international Hydrogen Energy Commission and McKinsey, the total investment in the global hydrogen energy industry chain will exceed US $300 billion by 2030.
Hydrogen is the lightest and largest known element in the universe. With the proposal of the “double carbon” goal, the pace of energy transformation has been further accelerated around carbon peak, carbon neutralization, and hydrogen energy’s advantages of high calorific value, low pollution, wide sources and flexible conversion are receiving unprecedented attention.
In recent years, breakthroughs have been made in hydrogen energy production, storage, transportation and utilization technology. The hydrogen energy industry is on the eve of the outbreak of large-scale commercialization and is expected to become the backbone of the future low-carbon energy system.
As a secondary energy, hydrogen energy can be produced not only by reforming fossil energy such as coal, oil and natural gas or biomass thermal cracking and microbial fermentation, but also by industrial by-products such as coking, chlor alkali, iron and steel, metallurgy and electrolytic water.
Among them, green hydrogen production, which uses renewable energy as raw material to produce hydrogen energy, has the characteristics of environmental protection, low emission and flexible transformation in the whole process. As an alternative and supplement to renewable electricity, green hydrogen production will play a key role in China’s realization of the “double carbon” goal.
01
Development of green hydrogen under the background of carbon neutralization
Gradually become a consensus
During the 14th Five Year Plan period, China’s ecological civilization construction has entered a new stage focusing on carbon reduction. At present, China’s carbon emissions mainly come from energy consumption.
From the perspective of energy related carbon emissions, although most energy consumption can be replaced by renewable power such as photovoltaic, wind power and hydropower, 20% ~ 30% of non electric energy consumption still needs to find an alternative form of zero carbon energy under the predictable process of technological and economic evolution.
Compared with biomass, CCUs / CCS and other technological paths, hydrogen energy has greater development potential, stronger technological iteration, more perfect policies and industries, and has more opportunities to become a solution for alternative subjects in the future non electric field.
\u3000\u3000 1. Developing hydrogen energy is the key to deep decarbonization in non electric field
Judging from the trend of energy replacement in the world, decarbonization and hydrogenation and clean and efficient are the general trend.
As a flexible and efficient secondary energy with rich application scenarios, hydrogen energy is an ideal interconnection medium to promote the clean and efficient utilization of traditional fossil energy and the large-scale development of renewable energy. It is also the best choice to realize large-scale and deep decarbonization in transportation, industry, construction and other fields.
On the one hand, hydrogen energy can be obtained from fossil energy and used as secondary energy, which helps to make clean and efficient use of primary energy such as coal and improve the quality of supply side.
Electrolytic water production, especially combined with renewable energy power generation, can not only achieve green and clean life cycle, but also expand the utilization mode of renewable energy, help to guide a large number of renewable energy from the power sector to the end-user sectors such as transportation, industry and construction, and realize deep decarbonization.
On the other hand, hydrogen energy has the highest calorific value among common fuels, about 3 times that of oil, 3.9 times that of alcohol and 4.5 times that of coal. The power generation efficiency and comprehensive energy efficiency are much higher than those of traditional fossil energy.
The application of hydrogen energy in the transportation field through fuel cell technology can not only save energy and improve energy efficiency, but also partially replace oil and natural gas, reduce external dependence, and help to improve China’s energy security level.
\u3000\u30002. The definition and scope of green hydrogen production are gradually converging
Hydrogen energy can be produced by a variety of processes and energy sources. In order to distinguish the environmental and climate friendliness of different hydrogen energy (mainly referring to the greenhouse gas emission intensity in the whole life cycle of hydrogen energy production), hydrogen energy is generally divided into “grey hydrogen, blue hydrogen and green hydrogen” or “grey hydrogen, blue hydrogen, blue-green hydrogen and green hydrogen” according to the color identification in the world.
At the same time, in order to guide hydrogen energy to achieve the original intention of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, relevant international institutions have put forward a variety of normative schemes for the identification standards of clean and low-carbon hydrogen energy.
In December 2020, China took the lead in issuing and implementing the hydrogen standard and certification for low hydrocarbon, clean hydrogen and renewable energy. The standard was prepared by China hydrogen energy alliance and became the world’s first formal standard to quantify the carbon emission of hydrogen energy. In terms of various standards and classifications, the internationally proposed green hydrogen is basically the same as hydrogen production from renewable energy and clean hydrogen.
It can be seen that the future development direction of hydrogen energy must be the green hydrogen production technology based on renewable energy. Nowadays, there are many kinds of hydrogen energy production technology.
\u3000\u3000 3. The policy orientation of green hydrogen development outside China is becoming increasingly clear
In recent years, with the global response to the pressure of emission reduction caused by climate change, green hydrogen has gradually attracted the attention of all countries. At present, the United States, Japan, the European Union and other countries or regions have successively announced the green hydrogen energy development strategy.
As early as 2002, the United States issued the national hydrogen energy development strategy. At present, California has built a number of hydrogen production projects using wind energy or photovoltaic.
In December 2020, Japan’s Ministry of economy, industry and Trade issued the “carbon neutral green growth strategy for 2050”, which proposed to support the development of green industries, including offshore wind power and hydrogen energy, through incentives such as supervision, subsidies and tax incentives. The “green agreement” drawn up by the EU has set “clean hydrogen” as a “priority development area”, which includes hydrogen production from natural gas and renewable energy.
In 2020, Europe proposed a € 30 billion 2 × 40gw green hydrogen action plan. As an EU member state, Germany launched the national hydrogen energy strategy in 2021, established the national hydrogen energy committee appointed by the cabinet, and plans to invest 9 billion euros to promote the production and use of hydrogen energy, striving to become a global leader in the field of green hydrogen technology.
China’s policy of supporting green hydrogen and blue hydrogen has become increasingly clear.
Du Xiangwan, academician of the Chinese Academy of engineering, proposed at the 2019 China hydrogen industry and energy transformation and development forum that using coal to produce hydrogen instead of fuel vehicles can only realize the transfer of fuel vehicle emissions, and no emissions can be achieved only by using non fossil energy to produce hydrogen.
In June 2020, Li Yizhong, former Minister of the Ministry of industry and information technology and President of China Federation of industrial economics, proposed that under the current technical conditions, it is necessary to prevent the blind development of coal chemical industry and coal to hydrogen, and avoid new risks such as ecological damage and climate warming.
Although the top-level design document of hydrogen energy at the national level has not been published, from the perspective of local hydrogen energy planning and industrial development guidance, the support direction of rapidly limiting the development of gray hydrogen and transitioning from blue hydrogen to green hydrogen as soon as possible has become a consensus. Some provincial governments have relevant planning and support policies for hydrogen energy supply.
02
Technology and economy of green hydrogen production
Accelerated development process
\u3000 \u30001. Hydrogen production technology from electrolytic water is moving towards commercial application
Hydrogen production by electrolysis of water is an electrochemical process that decomposes water into hydrogen and oxygen. At present, the technical routes of hydrogen production from electrolytic water mainly include alkaline hydrolysis cell technology (AE), proton exchange membrane water electrolysis technology (PEM) and solid oxide water electrolysis cell technology (SOEC).
Among them, AE is the most mature, the maximum gas production of a single unit is 1000 Nm3 / h, and large-scale hydrogen production can be realized through multiple units in parallel. PEM has simple process and high energy efficiency. The maximum gas production of a single unit is 50 Nm3 / h, but the cost is high due to the use of precious metal electrocatalyst (platinum, iridium) materials and membrane materials; SOEC needs a high temperature environment above 650 ℃ and has the highest energy efficiency, but it is still in the stage of laboratory research.
At present, the cost of hydrogen production by electrolysis is as high as 40 ~ kg, but the cost of hydrogen production by electrolysis is still as high as 40 ~ kg.
In terms of alkaline electrolytic water technology and equipment manufacturing, China’s technical level is similar to that of foreign countries, and has the ability of equipment manufacturing and process integration with completely independent intellectual property rights.
In terms of PEM hydrogen production technology, China is still in the early stage of R & D and industrialization.
In terms of single unit energy consumption, China’s PEM hydrogen production unit is superior, but there is still a distance from foreign countries in terms of hydrogen production scale of single equipment. In terms of SOEC hydrogen production technology, China is still in the stage of laboratory verification, and some research institutions have begun to develop commercial equipment for SOEC hydrogen production. In addition, new hydrogen energy preparation technologies such as photolysis of water to produce hydrogen and biological hydrogen have not yet entered the stage of industrialization.
With the development of hydrogen energy industry, the demand for large-scale hydrogen production from renewable power electrolytic water is gradually released.
In order to adapt to the application trend of large-scale electric hydrogen fusion, further improving important technical indicators has become the focus of the government, research institutions and production enterprises.
At present, the United States, Europe, Japan and South Korea regard electrolytic water hydrogen production technology as the mainstream development direction in the future, focus on AE scale and PEM industrialization, and accelerate R & D and capital investment.
China’s hydrogen energy industry has also preliminarily made it clear that technical optimization and improvement will focus on “improving electrolytic efficiency”, “durability” and “low cost of equipment”.
\u3000\u3000 2. The production cost of green hydrogen is expected to enter a rapid decline track
The cost of green hydrogen production technology is mainly affected by three factors.
First, the cost of electricity. Relying on the electricity generated by renewable energy such as wind power and photovoltaic, water is electrolyzed into hydrogen and oxygen.
Second, investment cost. It mainly refers to the cost of electrolytic cell system.
Third, operation and maintenance costs. From the current cost structure of hydrogen production from electrolytic water in typical projects, the level of electricity price and the initial investment cost of electrolytic cell system directly affect the final green hydrogen cost.
In 2021, the development of global renewable energy will accelerate, and the R & D and commercialization of hydrogen energy technology will jointly promote the continuous reduction of green hydrogen production costs.
First, the continuous progress of hydrogen production technology from electrolytic water. At present, the service life of the commonly used AE electrolysis device has doubled and is expected to continue to extend in the next 10 years. At the same time, its energy conversion efficiency was further improved, and the investment cost of electrolytic equipment decreased significantly.
Second, hydrogen production from electrolytic water to achieve economies of scale. In the future, with the large-scale growth of hydrogen consumption in transportation, it is necessary to produce a large amount of hydrogen energy with high purity, low sulfur and low ammonia from electrolytic water. According to the research, by using the multi stack system (combined with multiple electrolytic cell stacks to increase the overall capacity of the electrolytic cell system), under the existing technology, the investment cost of basic equipment can be reduced by 20% ~ 40%, the operation time of production equipment can be improved, and the cost of hydrogen production can be further reduced.
Third, the cost of renewable energy power generation continued to decline. Although the overall cost of wind power, photovoltaic and other renewable energy power generation is still higher than that of traditional fossil energy power generation, it has continued to decline for many years and is expected to achieve parity on the Internet. According to bnef’s follow-up study on global renewable energy power generation projects, it is expected that it will drop to 3.5 cents / kWh (about 0.24 yuan / kWh) and 2 cents / kWh (about 0.14 yuan / kWh) in 2030 and 2050 respectively, which is significantly lower than the cost of thermal power generation and natural gas power generation.
Fourth, the requirement for low hydrocarbons increases the cost of traditional hydrogen production technology. With the gradual establishment of the national carbon emission market, the carbon emission generated by traditional hydrogen production technology may need to be solved by purchasing carbon quota or installing carbon capture and utilization equipment in the future. The cost of purification and carbon sequestration will make the traditional fossil energy hydrogen production lose some cost advantages when it is applied to civil fields.
Combined with the above prediction factors, the cost of green hydrogen production in China will be reduced by 30% ~ 60% by 2030, among which the cost of PEM hydrogen production technology will be greatly reduced. In terms of economy, green hydrogen production can compete with hydrogen production from traditional fossil energy and industrial by-products. By 2050, green hydrogen production will have obvious competitive advantages. Some people have roughly calculated the cost of different hydrogen production technologies.
\u3000 \u30003. The three scenarios will carry the large-scale development of green hydrogen production
At present, the global annual consumption of hydrogen energy is about 120 million tons, which is mainly used for crude oil refining and the synthesis of ammonia and methanol. However, at present, the production of hydrogen energy is mainly based on natural gas and coal, and hydrogen production from renewable energy accounts for less than 5%. Under the background of carbon neutralization, it is an inevitable trend for green hydrogen to replace blue hydrogen. At present, the application scenarios of green hydrogen production mainly include the following three aspects.
First, green hydrogen production + large-scale long-term energy storage. Green hydrogen production is the best way for large-scale and long-term storage of renewable energy. Common physical energy storage and electrochemical energy storage technologies can only solve the non-uniformity of renewable energy in a short time, but can not solve the seasonal non-uniformity in a long time. It is an inevitable trend to use electrolytic water to produce hydrogen to solve the problem of storage and redistribution of renewable energy and improve the utilization rate of renewable energy.
Second, green hydrogen production + deep decarbonization in the metallurgical industry. Carbon reduction in metallurgical industry has become an inevitable trend, but there are many problems in the development of carbon capture, storage, packaging and utilization technology, such as difficult large-scale application and high cost in the short term. Hydrogen reduction smelting is a realistic and effective path for decarbonization in metallurgical industry.
Third, green hydrogen production + synthetic fuels and materials. Hydrogen energy is the main raw material used in oil refining and chemical industry in modern industry. In the future, the deep decarbonization of the chemical sector requires the large-scale replacement of traditional air separation and coal chemical hydrogen production with hydrogen production from renewable energy. It will also greatly increase the demand for green hydrogen production, and the coupling between green hydrogen production projects and chemical industry will be closer and normalized.
03
Color hydrogen production industry in
Take the lead in benefiting from development
Green hydrogen production will become the biggest beneficiary of the development of hydrogen energy industry in the future. According to the hydrogen insight jointly released by the international Hydrogen Energy Commission and McKinsey, the total investment in the global hydrogen energy industry chain will exceed US $300 billion by 2030. From the distribution of all links in the industrial chain, hydrogen production projects will account for the largest share of investment.
\u3000 \u30001. Investment in green hydrogen production has entered a period of rapid growth
According to the statistics of the international Hydrogen Energy Commission, there are 228 built, under construction and planned projects in the hydrogen energy industry chain worldwide.
Among them, 17 are open megawatt green hydrogen production projects (i.e. renewable energy projects greater than 1GW and low hydrocarbon production projects greater than 200000 t / a), mainly distributed in Europe, Australia, Asia, the Middle East, Chile and other countries and regions.
By the end of 2020, the cumulative installed capacity of global green hydrogen production (actually water electrolysis hydrogen production) was 290mW, of which more than 40% was in Europe, followed by Canada (9%) and China (8%).
It is estimated that by 2030, the total installed capacity of global hydrogen production from electrolytic water will increase rapidly to 54gw. If early intentional projects are added, the total installed capacity of global hydrogen production from electrolytic water will reach 91gw.
China’s demand for green hydrogen production is rapidly released.
It is predicted that under the background of carbon neutralization in 2030, China’s annual demand for hydrogen energy will reach 43 million tons, accounting for about 5% of the final energy consumption.
Among them, green hydrogen production is about 5 million tons, and the installed capacity of electrolytic cell is about 80gw China’s demand for green hydrogen production is mainly driven by new demand in transportation and decarbonization in chemical industry.
According to the data of China hydrogen energy industry association, in the first half of 2021, China’s hydrogen energy output increased by 25% year-on-year compared with 2020, of which the proportion of hydrogen production from renewable energy increased by 30% year-on-year.
\u3000\u30002. Two green hydrogen segments will benefit first
First, petrochemical enterprises accelerate the transformation to green hydrogen production. Hydrogen energy is not only an intermediate product but also a raw material in the refining and chemical industry. Traditional petrochemical enterprises are traditional large producers of hydrogen and hydrogen consumption, but the carbon emission of traditional coal hydrogen production and industrial by-product hydrogen utilization is high.
The “double carbon” goal puts forward higher requirements for the transformation of the petrochemical industry. Promoting the application of blue hydrogen and green hydrogen in the petrochemical industry is an inevitable choice for the petrochemical industry to find new drivers of development.
At present, the global petrochemical giants, including “three barrels of oil”, have carried out technology research and development and project demonstration, and announced their own green hydrogen plan. The transformation from traditional petrochemical to green decarbonization is the general trend.
China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation(600028) , Petrochina Company Limited(601857) , CNOOC, national energy, BASF, shell, BP, ExxonMobil, total and other enterprises have made relevant layout.
Second, the market of key core equipment of electrolytic water is broad. Electrolytic cell is the key equipment to produce green hydrogen from renewable energy. The development of its technical route, performance level and cost are important factors affecting the market trend of green hydrogen. PEM electrolyzed water and alkaline electrolyzed water technology have been commercialized and popularized, and will have strong commercial value in the future.
According to the forecast, the global market space of electrolytic cell equipment will reach 1.2 billion US dollars by 2024. Renewable energy equipment manufacturing enterprises have accelerated into the field of electrolytic water equipment manufacturing, and the traditional market competition structure is developing and changing significantly.
With the participation of Longi Green Energy Technology Co.Ltd(601012) , Sungrow Power Supply Co.Ltd(300274) and other renewable energy giants, the market of electrolytic water equipment will accelerate its development.
For example, Longi Green Energy Technology Co.Ltd(601012) proposes to explore green hydrogen solutions based on photovoltaic equipment manufacturing and solutions, and promote “green electricity + Green hydrogen” to achieve carbon neutralization and cope with climate change.
With the increasing installed capacity of photovoltaic, power consumption has become one of the bottlenecks in the large-scale development of photovoltaic. Photovoltaic + hydrogen is one of the key ways to solve the problem of photovoltaic energy storage, creating a new application scenario and broad market demand for photovoltaic power generation.
