According to the data released by the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, from January to August this year, China produced and sold 2,000 fuel cell vehicles, a year-on-year increase of 2 times and 1.6 times. Among them, the output in the first half of the year alone exceeded last year, and the development of hydrogen fuel cell vehicle industry has obviously entered the "fast lane". In recent years, the state has issued various policy documents concerning the hydrogen energy and hydrogen fuel cell vehicle industry. In March this year, the National Development and Reform Commission and the National Energy Administration jointly issued the " Medium-and long-term Plan for the Development of the Hydrogen Energy Industry (2021-2035), proposing that the number of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles should be about 50,000 by 2025.
Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles have frequently "appeared"
In July this year, Changan Shenlan announced the first mass-production of hydrogen fuel cell vehicle —— SL03 hydrogen electric version, which realizes 100% localization of the key components of the vehicle and has a range of up to 730 kilometers. In addition to Changan Deep Blue SL03 hydrogen electric version, SAIC Datong MAXUS EUNIQ achieved mass production; Haima 7X-H real car was also officially unveiled, the new car positioning hydrogen fuel cell MPV. In addition, many automakers will launch hydrogen fuel cell vehicles.
Different support policies of "purchase subsidy" for pure electric vehicles. China mainly uses the policy of hydrogen fuel cell vehicle demonstration city cluster to promote the application and promotion of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. Since August 2021, China has clearly included Shanghai, Beijing, Guangdong, Henan, Hebei and other urban agglomerations into the national hydrogen fuel cell vehicle demonstration application urban agglomeration, accelerate the demonstration operation of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, and promote the development of the industrial chain.
In January this year, 500 hydrogen fuel cell mud trucks to transport construction waste. The cars take eight to 15 minutes and have a range of more than 400 kilometers. So far, the mud-headed cars have run for more than 600,000 kilometers. During this year's Beijing Winter Olympics and Paralympics, more than 1,000 fuel cell vehicles completed large-scale demonstration operations, verifying the technical and economic feasibility of subzero fuel cell vehicles in 20℃ in winter.
In early August, 410 SAIC fuel cell vehicles, including passenger vehicles, buses, logistics vehicles, heavy trucks and so on. The Shanghai Medium-and Long-term Plan for Hydrogen Energy Industry Development (2022-2035) released this year clearly points out that the commercial application of hydrogen fuel cells in transportation will be accelerated, and the number of fuel cell vehicles will exceed 10,000 by 2025.
Some core technologies continued to make breakthroughs, and the formation of industrial chains was accelerated
Hydrogen fuel cell vehicle technology, as a technology route different from electric vehicles, is how mature?
It is understood that the key technologies in the field of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are mainly focused on the hydrogen fuel cell stack, mainly including catalyst, proton exchange membrane and carbon paper "three major materials" and their bipolar plate, membrane electrode and other "two major components". At present, the core technology in these subdivided fields continue to break through, to accelerate the realization of localization.
Membrane electrodes are known as hydrogen fuel cell "chips", which determine the performance, life, and cost of hydrogen fuel cells. In recent years, with the joint efforts of Chinese enterprises and scientific research institutions, the localization has been significantly accelerated.
Other components have also accelerated the completion of the "breakthrough". Advanced Energy Industry Research Institute (Guangzhou) Co., Ltd. has built a carbon paper production line with an annual output of 30,000 square meters. In the vehicle stage, hydrogen fuel cell passenger vehicles previously faced big restrictions because the volume and weight of hydrogen fuel cells are too large, but with the significant increase of the power density of hydrogen fuel cell stacks in China and the gradual improvement of the level of domestic components, the above bottleneck has been broken through. For example, the Chang'an dark blue SL03 hydrogen electric fuel cell system tube beam length decreased by about 20%, and the system size was significantly reduced, making it possible to carry cars.
"In recent years, all the indicators of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles in China have been improved to a certain extent. For example, the stack life of graphite bipolar plates has increased from 3,000 hours to 15,000 hours."Said Ouyang Minggao, an academician at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. The industry chain of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles is long, involving upstream hydrogen production, hydrogen storage, hydrogenation, fuel cell system, electric drive system and other components and policy manufacturing, and extended to logistics, tourism and other application fields. At present, all over the country are speeding up the improvement of the hydrogen fuel cell vehicle industry chain.
Guangzhou Huangpu is the Guangdong hydrogen fuel cell vehicle commercial operation demonstration area. More than 40 upstream and downstream enterprises and institutions have settled in the region, and the output value is expected to exceed 1 billion yuan in 2022. In order to improve the industrial chain, Guangzhou has also accelerated the production of hydrogen energy. Guangzhou Petrochemical's annual output of 1,500 tons of high purity hydrogen project has been completed and put into operation, and will form an annual hydrogen supply capacity with an output of more than 20,000 tons by 2025.
In Chongqing, many auto companies have released hydrogen fuel cell models and gathered some very important industrial chain supporting companies. The local government is also working with Sichuan to build the "Chengdu-Chongqing Hydrogen Corridor", which plans to invest about 1,000 hydrogen fuel cell logistics vehicles by 2025. Centering on the industrial chain, Chongqing has also accelerated the construction of the National Hydrogen Power Quality Inspection Center project, and built a comprehensive operation monitoring platform for hydrogen fuel cell vehicles.
It is still in the early stage of demonstration and business model exploration
"The hydrogen fuel cell vehicle industry is still in the initial stage of demonstration and business model exploration, and it still takes time for the policy to promote the industry."Said Xu Haidong, deputy chief engineer of the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers. High cost is the core issue. It is estimated that the average unit price of each hydrogen fuel cell vehicle power system is hundreds of thousands of yuan, while the battery cost of the electric vehicle power system is only tens of thousands of yuan.
Electrolysis of water is one of the most promising ways to produce hydrogen, but the cost of producing hydrogen is still high. According to calculations, the current average hydrogen cost of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles per 100 kilometers is 30-80 yuan, while the electricity cost of electric vehicles per 100 kilometers is generally less than 20 yuan. Professionals propose that key core technologies such as hydrogen fuel cells and electrolysis devices still need to be solved, and that the improvement of the industrial chain and related supporting facilities should be accelerated. Fan Weiyao, general manager of Shanghai Lanze Energy Technology Co., LTD., pointed out that it is still necessary to promote the technology research and development of core components such as carbon paper and proton exchange membrane to accelerate the process of localization. Industry insiders said that with the introduction of hydrogen fuel cell passenger vehicles into the market, more dependent on the perfect network of hydrogenation stations, the construction of hydrogenation stations still needs to be accelerated.
Xiong chuan hydrogen technology (Guangzhou) co., LTD., deputy general manager rong-jun li said, compared with pure electric vehicles, hydrogen fuel cell vehicle filling time is short, long range, in large load, long life, high strength applications has innate advantages, should speed up the heavy trucks, special vehicles, commercial vehicles, energy storage in the field of applications, promote the rapid development of industrial chain.
Article source: Xinhuanet