China will deploy 116,900 FCEVs by 2025, significantly surpassing the 50K target in China's national hydrogen strategy

[Caribbeans]

Progresses and challenges of China’s hydrogen sector in 2023

ChinaHydrogen.substack.com | Jian Wu | Dec 28, 2023

2023 is a remarkable year for China’s booming low carbon hydrogen industry as we saw inspiring progresses across the value chain, as well as in the policy building and implementation.

As more and more stakeholders realized the role of green hydrogen will be crucial for China to achieve deep decarbonization while ensuring domestic energy security and boosting domestic economic development, policy makers are ramping up to establish institutional foundations for China’s hydrogen economy.

As of December 2023, 27 out of 31 provinces in China have provided their provincial hydrogen strategies and specified their targets through 2025, some provinces even specified targets for 2030 and 2035. According to these provincial level hydrogen strategies, altogether, China will deploy 116,900 FCEVs by 2025, significantly surpassing the 50,000 FCEVs target in China’s national hydrogen strategy. 8 provinces establish a target to deploy 10,000 FCEVs by 2025, including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangdong, Hebei, Shandong, Shanxi, Shaanxi, and Jiangsu province.

The deployment of FCEVs is accelerating. For the first eleven month of 2023, the sales volume of FCEVs in China reached 3,996 units, up 44.8% yoy, according to China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM). Heavy duty trucks rank No.1 among all the applications as current subsidy policies have a tendency favoring more powerful vehicles, indicating that China’s domestic FCEVs market is still a policy-driven market.

We also witness that over 400 hydrogen refueling stations have been established in all provinces except Tibet with another 39 in construction by the end of 2023. Guangdong province holds the leading position with over 60 hydrogen refueling stations followed by Shandong, Hebei, Shanghai, Zhejiang, Shanxi, and Hubei provinces with 20-30 refueling stations in operation. However, compared with the capacity building targets set in provincial hydrogen strategies or implementations plans, we identified that most provinces may fall behind their schedule...more
https://chinahydrogen.substack.com/p/progresses-and-challenges-of-chinas

"another 39 in construction by the end of 2023"

California couldn't even build 39 stations in the last ~5 years. Pathetic.

While Americans argue and bicker endlessly about whether hydrogen should even be a part of the global energy transition or not - China is making hydrogen work right now as you read this. In the past 9 years or so they have now become the worldwide leader in hydrogen tech. Nice Job America!

The Real father of Electric Vehicles - four years ago

[Caribbeans]

1. And for those who say it can't happen here

It IS HAPPENING RIGHT NOW In Europe - Hydrogen stations have been mandated by law to be located every 200Km along the new TEN network

Member countries of EU are building a H2 network of hydrogen fuelling stations every 200 km along busy highways & near all major urban areas. In total, there will be > 600 stations, expected to be completed by the end of 2030...
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/drive/reviews/article-bmw-shows-potential-with-hydrogen-but-does-it-have-a-future/

No need for a new network of stations

As Germany has demonstrated, it's easy to add a H2 dispenser to existing petrol stations

TotalEnergies, Wiener Strasse 39, Dresden, Germany. Green Hydrogen at EUR 11.00 / kg ($12.13 USD /kg) - H2Mobility



https://h2-mobility.de/en/our-h2-stations/

[wintemark]

2. What classifies as Green Hydrogen is complicated

There are hydrogen "wells" that mostly are self explanitory. Deep underground reserves of entrained hydrogen gas that can be extracted through fracking like techniques. Not as environmentally friendly as it seems.

Some hydrogen gets called green when it is actually blue. Blue is hydrogen from reforming natural gas and then doing something with the left over CO2. If the natural gas came from landfills they sometimes refer to it as blue green.

Sometimes hydrogen is the byproduct of a process to produce carbon so that hydrogen is sometimes considered green, but actually has its own color designation.

True green hydrogen, from the electrolysis of water, can be dirtier that traditional grey hydrogen it all depends on how the electricity was made. it is all too easy to green wash in the hydrogen industry by shifting the CO2 emissions to a few electrical power plant utilities that hide the real environmental impact of the "green" hydrogen.

P.S. there is a really good article in the trade magazine Gas World from their June issue about how the hydrogen color palate works and doesn't work.

[CentralMass]

3. At what energy cost and carbon foot print ?

Unless they have some legitimate carbon capture method if they a reforming natural gas to produce it it has a higher carbon footprint then the natural gas that it is produced from. If it is produce via electrolysis it is 3x to4x less efficient to electrolyze and compress the hydrogen for use in an HFCV than it is to charge an equivilent battery EV.
It is putting the cart before the horse. Until there is some breakthrough in efficieny using hydrogen for personal transportation is an energy hog and not better for the environment.

[NickB79]

4. Just for context, there are currently 311 million cars registered in China

And 8 million EV's were sold in 2023 alone there. By 2025, that's projected to hit 10 million EV's per year.

116,000 FCEV's isn't the flex you seem to think it is.