In response to global climate change, ports and other transportation energy is accelerating to low carbon transition. In recent years, in addition to the conventional "oil to electricity" of port equipment in China's ports, liquefied natural gas (LNG), hydrogen energy, ammonia gas, biofuel, wind energy, solar energy and other new energy systems are accelerating the construction and trying to expand the application.
As is known to all, due to the low use cost and the less pollution of diesel, the proportion of port ships is increasing, but because it cannot truly achieve "zero emission", it is still a transitional energy in the short and medium term, while solar energy and wind energy are difficult. In comparison, not only hydrogen energy is easy to obtain, but also attracts more attention as an energy conversion channel across regions and seasons, and is expected to become one of the main clean energy in the field of port logistics in the future.
The hydrogen energy industry is beginning to take shape
Hydrogen energy, with hydrogen as the energy carrier, is a secondary energy with large reserves, wide sources, high efficiency, clean, low-carbon and renewable. Whether it is direct combustion or electrochemical conversion, the product is only water and high energy conversion efficiency, which is known as the secondary energy with the most potential development in the 21st century.
In 2019, hydrogen energy was included in the government work report for the first time, and the White Paper on China Hydrogen Energy and Fuel Cell Industry was released in June of that year, which really began to accelerate the research on hydrogen storage and transportation technology; in the Energy Law in April 2020, hydrogen energy was included for the first time. Before that, according to Chinese regulations, "hydrogen" could only be used as a "hazardous chemical", rather than energy.
Although China takes "hydrogen" as energy for research and development and utilization time is short, there has been a "hydrogen industry" with fossil energy production and industrial byproduct hydrogen recovery production and non-energy utilization, and this industry has a considerable scale.
According to the data of China Hydrogen Energy Alliance, in 2021, China's hydrogen production capacity is about 41 million tons, and the actual output is about 33.42 million tons, and the calorific value accounting for about 2.7% of the total terminal energy. And among them, the green hydrogen energy obtained through the "electrolysis of water" method only accounts for 1%, and most of it is also used for ammonia and methanol and other fuels.
Compared with the "hydrogen" industry, the development of the "hydrogen energy" industry in China is still in its primary stage, and only about 1% of the hydrogen production is used as energy. At present, China's hydrogen production and production and sales of hydrogen storage materials rank first in the world, creating favorable conditions for the development and utilization of hydrogen technology and hydrogen industry. In recent years, China's hydrogen industry has developed rapidly, and the application scenarios are increasing, but it is still mainly concentrated in hydrogen energy vehicles. By the end of 2021, China has built 255 hydrogenation stations and about 9,315 hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, becoming the world's largest fuel cell commercial vehicle market.
At present, the hydrogenation stations, from the perspective of geographical distribution, that have been put into operation in China are mainly concentrated in Guangdong, Jiangsu, Shanghai, Hubei, Hebei and other places, and the service objects are mainly urban public transportation equipment, with few port special hydrogenation stations. The construction number and regional distribution of hydrogenation stations in the future need to be improved.
China has mastered some core technologies related to hydrogen energy infrastructure and fuel cells, and formulated 112 national standards, with certain industrial equipment and the production capacity of fuel cell vehicles. From the perspective of industrial planning, China issued the "Made in China 2025" and the "Outline of the National Innovation-driven Development Strategy", as well as the "Medium-and Long-term Plan for the Development of the Hydrogen Energy Industry (2021-2035)" jointly issued by the National Development and Reform Commission and the National Energy Administration in March 2022, which are actively encouraging the development of the hydrogen energy industry.
At the same time, dozens of provinces (cities) and regions, including Beijing, Hebei, Shanghai, Zhejiang, Shandong, Guangzhou have released hydrogen industry development plan / implementation plan / action plan; according to the released planning target, it is expected that by 2025, the cumulative promotion of fuel cell vehicles will exceed 150,000, hydrogenation stations will exceed 1000, and the cumulative output value of hydrogen energy industry will exceed RMB 960 billion. In addition, from the perspective of R & D investment, although China's hydrogen energy layout is relatively late, it is gradually becoming the country with the largest increase in R & D budget investment.
Hydrogen energy port to build "production, marketing and use" integration
At present, China has begun to build a "production, marketing and use" integrated hydrogen energy port. "Hydrogen port" mainly refers to the ports with the use of hydrogen energy, hydrogen energy industry cultivation and hydrogen energy trade. Recently, the hydrogen energy application of hydrogen energy industry and port machinery equipment will focus on the cultivation. In the medium and long term, with the maturity of hydrogen energy technology, hydrogen energy trade will be gradually carried out, forming a whole industrial chain integrating "production, storage, marketing and use". At present, China has a number of "hydrogen ports" under construction, respectively located in Qingdao city of Shandong Province, Shanghai Lingang New Area, Tianjin Binhai New Area, Zhangjiagang City of Jiangsu Province, Ningbo City of Zhejiang Province and other regions. At the same time, Shenzhen Yantian, Dalian Taiping Bay and other ports have also made plans for the construction of hydrogen energy ports.
In the future, it will mainly play the following three roles: through the development of hydrogen energy industry chain for shipping industry and decarbonization; third, as a key hub of hydrogen energy import and export. According to the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), about one-quarter of the global hydrogen will be used for international trade, and half of them will be transported by ship, which will drive the global application of hydrogen energy.
However, in the field of port applications, hydrogen energy applications are mainly focused on trailer collection cards. At present, the use of hydrogen energy in our ports is mainly hydrogen fuel cell, the working principle is not directly burning hydrogen, but relying on its anode (H2), cathode (O2) and electrolyte components, the chemical energy in the fuel into electricity through electrochemical reaction; the working process only needs fuel (hydrogen) and oxidant (air or pure oxygen) continuous input, hydrogen fuel cell can continuously produce electric energy.
Taking Qingdao, Shandong province as an example, the Qingdao Hydrogen Energy Industry Development Plan (2020-2030) proposes to promote the construction of hydrogen energy ports and other demonstration forms of hydrogen energy development, and to carry out the demonstration application of fuel cell port machinery and logistics transportation in Qingdao Port. At present, the world's first "hydrogen power" automatic rail crane, independently developed by Qingdao Port, has solved the problems such as one-button anchorage, sustainable charging, automatic lock picking, and AGV lightweight, and the operation efficiency has been improved by 30% and reduced the number of staff by more than 50%. Gradually replace the existing fuel vehicles in the port with clean energy vehicles, and promote the long-distance logistics companies connected with the port operations to gradually replace the clean energy vehicles. The scale is expected to reach 70,000-100,000 vehicles.
However, hydrogen energy still has deficiencies in the application of trailer collecting cards. At present, the price of hydrogen energy vehicles and the price of hydrogen energy are high. Although the application of hydrogen energy equipment has certain social and environmental benefits, the economy is poor, and the enthusiasm of port enterprises to promote the application of hydrogen energy vehicles is not high.
In addition, in terms of physical characteristics, the calorific value of hydrogen (143 M J/kg) is high, which is 3-4 times that of fossil fuels such as coke and gasoline of the same mass, and the comprehensive conversion efficiency of fuel cells can be more than 90%. However, in order to analyze the "oil well to wheel" (WTW) life cycle efficiency index commonly used in the energy efficiency of the vehicle, the performance of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles is generally inferior to that of pure electric vehicles, mainly affected by the current hydrogen production, hydrogen storage, hydrogen transmission, and the immature fuel cell energy conversion technology.
To this end, in the past three years, China has launched a key RESEARCH and development plan to implement the "renewable energy and Hydrogen Technology" key project. Through this key project, the Ministry of Science and Technology has deployed 27 hydrogen energy RESEARCH and development projects, and invested the research and development funds of about 500 million yuan. Among them, there are 14 fuel cell technologies, accounting for 51.9% of the total project; 5 hydrogen production technologies, accounting for 18.5%; 6 hydrogen storage technologies, accounting for 22.2%, and 2 hydrogen refueling station technologies, accounting for 7.4%.
At present, China's port hydrogen energy utilization, there are still technical shortcomings. In terms of restricting the development of hydrogen energy in the upstream, the two major problems are the storage and transportation of hydrogen fuel. There are few professional hydrogen supply manufacturers for port mobile machinery, the transportation mode is single, and the use cost of hydrogen is high.
At the same time, the domestic hydrogen use mainly gaseous hydrogen, hydrogen transportation is long tube trailer, transportation pressure is more than 20MPa, single times can transport 347kg, domestic "hydrogen storage bottle" mainly 35MPa "hydrogen bottle", 70MPa type "hydrogen bottle" technology international backward, because of the low trailer transport pressure, equipment hydrogenation time relatively filling diesel, LNG time is long, affect the terminal operation efficiency.
In addition, the domestic hydrogen energy standards and specifications related to the mobile machinery need to be further improved. Improving the storage and transportation efficiency of hydrogen energy and reducing the storage and transportation cost of hydrogen energy are the current development priorities of hydrogen energy storage and transportation technology. From the perspective of "zero emissions" a energy, most of the world's port "hydrogen" adjust measures to local conditions, mainly use of "offshore wind" hydrogen system, and the use of wind power, solar energy through the "electrolysis" way of hydrogen production is very small, whether supply ship or port for private use is not enough to meet the "zero carbon energy" standard.
Port cities have initially formed a hydrogen energy industry chain
Fortunately, China's port cities have initially formed a relatively complete hydrogen energy industry chain. Tianjin, Qingdao, Dalian, Shanghai, Fuzhou, Guangzhou and other cities have carried out the whole industrial chain projects of hydrogen energy production, storage, transportation, filling, fuel cell power system and hydrogen energy application, forming a number of leading enterprises.
Among them, relying on the petrochemical industry, Tianjin dominates the hydrogen industry, forming the whole industrial chain of hydrogen production, hydrogen hydrogenation and hydrogen use; Qingdao Port, together with Tongji University and SAIC, carries out the whole industrial chain projects of hydrogen energy production, storage, transportation, filling, fuel cell power system and hydrogen energy application.
Dalian has many experienced enterprises in hydrogen preparation, storage and transportation, hydrogen fuel cell system and components, hydrogen fuel cell vehicle complete machine, etc., and has initially formed a relatively complete hydrogen energy industry chain. Shanghai has introduced a number of hydrogen energy industry chain enterprises, and initially formed a relatively complete hydrogen energy industry framework system, such as the research and development of key components such as membrane collector electrode, the production of fuel cell power system and the supporting infrastructure of hydrogenation stations. Fuzhou has a certain foundation in hydrogen supply, fuel cell core components, vehicle production and development. Some hydrogen energy enterprises in Guangzhou have completed the integration of the supply chain system of upstream and downstream industries such as hydrogen energy core components, hydrogen supply system and vehicle manufacturers, which has promoted the accelerated development of the local hydrogen energy industry.