China's capital Beijing is promoting hydrogen fuel cell vehicles in response to the country's carbon reduction targets.
The city is on target to bring 3,000 hydrogen vehicles on the road and build 37 hydrogen refuelling stations by the end of 2023. It expects the number of hydrogen vehicles on the roads to exceed 10,000 units by 2025.
The plan is in line with China's targets of reaching carbon neutrality by 2060 and for CO2 emissions to peak by 2030. China produced 664 hydrogen fuel cell vehicles during January-July, up by 48.5pc from a year earlier, with sales rising by 47.7pc to 675 for the same period, according to data from the China Automotive Manufacturers Association (CAAM).
The Beijing municipal government expects the plan to reduce carbon emissions in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei area by 2mn t by 2025, while boosting demand for hydrogen to 135 t/d by 2025 from 50 t/d in 2023.
China's hydrogen demand is forecast to reach 60mn t by 2050, accounting for 10pc of the country's energy consumption, according to government-supported industry group the China Hydrogen Alliance.
By 2025 the city's government will support development of the industrial system and supporting infrastructure for hydrogen energy, cultivate 10-15 leading enterprises in the industrial chain, form an industrial cluster for key components and equipment manufacturing and build 3-4 world-class industrial research and development and innovation platforms.
China's state-controlled oil firm Sinopec has also begun developing green hydrogen projects this year, with a target to become the number one hydrogen company in China by 2025. It is on target to build 1,000 hydrogen refuelling stations, 5,000 charging stations and power battery exchange stations and 7,000 distributed photovoltaic power stations by 2025. The company in April announced a plan to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, 10 years ahead of the national target.
China produced 1,000 hydrogen fuel cell vehicles in 2020, down by 57.5pc from a year earlier because of the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, CAAM data show.
