Green hydrogen： pure zero-carbon new energy
According to the forecast, the annual demand for hydrogen in China will reach 37.15 million tons to achieve the peak carbon dioxide emissions goal in 2030. To achieve carbon neutrality in 2060, the annual demand for hydrogen will reach 130 million tons, of which the scale of hydrogen production from renewable energy (green hydrogen) is expected to reach 100 million tons.
The Beijing Winter Olympics has come to an end. This winter Olympics is not only a feast of ice and snow, but also a hydrogen energy event.
Compared with the Tokyo Olympic Games, which only used hydrogen fuel for some torches, the Beijing Winter Olympics replaced all the torch fuel with hydrogen energy. At the same time, the number of hydrogen-fueled vehicles invested in the Beijing Winter Olympics was about twice that of the Tokyo Olympic Games. On the evening of February 4th, in Zhangjiakou of Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics, the green hydrogen independently developed by China Petroleum also lit the torch platform of Prince Edward City. This is the only torch platform lit by green hydrogen in this Winter Olympics, and it is also the first torch with green hydrogen as fuel in the history of Winter Olympics in the past 100 years.
Green hydrogen has therefore entered the public’s field of vision.
Green hydrogen is the original intention of developing hydrogen energy.
What is green hydrogen?
The so-called green hydrogen refers to the hydrogen obtained by decomposing water with renewable energy. When it burns, it only produces water, achieving zero carbon dioxide emission from the source. It is a pure green new energy and plays an important role in the global energy transformation.
Experts explained that although hydrogen energy is clean and renewable energy, there is no carbon emission in the process of releasing energy, but the current process of producing hydrogen energy is not 100% "zero carbon".
Hydrogen mainly exists in water and fossil fuels in the form of compounds on the earth, and hydrogen energy, as a secondary energy source, needs to be extracted by hydrogen production technology. At present, most of the existing hydrogen production technologies rely on fossil energy, which cannot avoid carbon emissions. According to the source of hydrogen energy production and the emission in the production process, people call hydrogen energy grey hydrogen, blue hydrogen and green hydrogen respectively.
Gray hydrogen is hydrogen produced by burning fossil fuels, and there will be carbon dioxide emissions in the production process. At present, the vast majority of hydrogen on the market is gray hydrogen, accounting for about 95% of the global hydrogen production.
Blue hydrogen can be made from fossil fuels such as coal or natural gas. During the preparation of blue hydrogen, carbon dioxide by-products can be captured, utilized and sealed (CCUS), thus realizing carbon neutrality. Although natural gas is also a fossil fuel, it also produces greenhouse gases when producing blue hydrogen. However, due to the use of CCUS and other advanced technologies, greenhouse gases are captured, which reduces the impact on the global environment and realizes low-emission production.
"Green hydrogen is the original intention of developing hydrogen energy." Mao Zengqiang, vice chairman of the International Hydrogen Energy Society and professor of Tsinghua University, once emphasized that the development of hydrogen energy is to decarbonize energy, and only by producing "green hydrogen" from carbon-free energy can this goal be achieved.
Thus, although all colors of hydrogen will play a role in the future, in the final analysis, green hydrogen is the most sustainable and truly carbon-free, so it is also becoming the focus of global hydrogen energy development.
The data shows that by the end of 2020, there are about 70 green hydrogen projects under construction in the world, including more than 20 GW-level projects. Last year, Europe also put forward the development goal of building 6GW of electrolytic green hydrogen production capacity in 2024 and nearly 40GW in 2030.
The report "Clean Hydrogen Revolution" recently released by the global investment research department of Goldman Sachs, an international investment bank, believes that clean hydrogen is the key to achieving a net zero emission path in the world and the key pillar of energy structure in various countries, and relying on clean hydrogen path can reduce global greenhouse gas emissions by 15% (20% of carbon dioxide emissions). According to the report, more than 30 countries around the world have launched hydrogen strategies and road maps, promising that by 2030, the installed capacity of clean hydrogen will increase by more than 400 times compared with 2020, and the average annual growth rate of green hydrogen will increase by 50 times.
The development of green hydrogen in China is in the ascendant
Before the green hydrogen torch, the development of green hydrogen in China had begun to show signs.
In January 2020, the world’s first large-scale solar fuel synthesis demonstration project was successfully tested in Lanzhou New District. One of the key technologies of this project is the high-efficiency, low-cost and long-life large-scale electrocatalytic hydrogen production technology developed by Li Can, academician of China Academy of Sciences and dean of School of Chemistry and Materials Science, University of Science and Technology of China. In October of that year, the world’s first "liquid sunshine hydrogenation station" integrated device was successfully demonstrated. At the end of 2021, the first 10,000-ton photovoltaic green hydrogen demonstration project in China was officially launched in Kuqa, Xinjiang.
On December 21st, 2020, China issued the White Paper "Energy Development in China in the New Era", proposing to accelerate the development of technologies and equipment of hydrogen energy industrial chain such as green hydrogen production, storage and use, promote the development of hydrogen energy fuel cell technology chain and hydrogen fuel cell automobile industrial chain, support multi-scenario energy storage applications in all aspects of energy, and strive to promote the complementary development of energy storage and renewable energy.
Zou Cai, academician of China Academy of Sciences and president of Shenzhen New Energy Research Institute of China Petroleum, said that as early as 2012, China Petroleum Exploration and Development Research Institute (hereinafter referred to as China Petroleum Exploration Institute) took the lead in setting up a nanotechnology R&D team. "This team, led by Dr. Wook Kim, advanced the research and development of new energy materials and technologies. In 2017, they began to focus on the two technical routes of electrolytic water and photolysis water. After five years of research and development and reserve, they have initially established an industrialization foundation. " In 2020, the unit re-established a hydrogen energy technology research and development team of more than 20 people, specializing in the preparation of green hydrogen, efficient storage and transportation and application of characteristic scenes.
According to the forecast, the annual demand for hydrogen in China will reach 37.15 million tons to achieve the peak carbon dioxide emissions goal in 2030. To achieve carbon neutrality in 2060, the annual demand for hydrogen will reach 130 million tons, of which the scale of hydrogen production from renewable energy (green hydrogen) is expected to reach 100 million tons.
The relevant person in charge of the New Energy Center of China Petroleum Exploration Institute said that China Petroleum Exploration Institute will continue to strengthen the support of basic research on green hydrogen, and do a good job in tackling key and difficult problems in basic technologies such as hydrogen production by electrolysis of water, hydrogen production by photolysis of water, solid hydrogen storage and solid oxide fuel cells, and guide and promote the orderly development of green hydrogen business; Formulate the development plan of green hydrogen project, continue to develop products such as photoelectric catalyst, electrolytic cell body and solid metal hydrogen storage, improve the efficiency of photoelectric catalysis and conversion, and reduce the equipment cost; Form a series of standards and specifications to promote the large-scale development of green hydrogen.
"We strive to set up an industrialization demonstration project of hydrogen production by photovoltaic electrolysis of water in the oilfield as soon as possible, strengthen the layout planning of the whole hydrogen energy industry chain, combine the technology independently developed with the reality, explore the mode of’ production, learning and research’, carry out demonstration applications, and form a complete hydrogen energy technology system with independent intellectual property rights of China Petroleum." The person in charge said.
Still need to cross the threshold of technology and cost.
For China Petroleum Exploration Institute, lighting the only green hydrogen torch in the Beijing Winter Olympics is just the beginning. Similarly, the development of green hydrogen industry in China is still in its infancy.
Wang Cheng, director of the Hydrogen Fuel Cell Laboratory of Tsinghua University Institute of Nuclear Energy and New Energy Technology, pointed out in an interview with the media that in order to further promote the development and application of green hydrogen, efforts should be made to improve related technologies and formulate standards and policies.
This is also the consensus of experts in the industry.
In terms of technology, Wang Cheng believes that we should promote the demonstration application of large-scale hydrogen production in alkaline electrolyzers, further enhance its practicability, develop new hydrogen production technologies such as SPE/SOEC, tackle the engineering and technical problems of intermittent flexible coupling and fluctuating renewable energy in the hydrogen production system with electrolyzed water, and vigorously develop new hydrogen production technologies such as photocatalytic decomposition, thermochemical hydrogen production, biological hydrogen production and nuclear hydrogen production.
In order to truly realize large-scale and commercial development, high cost is still the main challenge for the development of hydrogen production technology by electrolysis of water. It is understood that the cost of hydrogen production by electrolysis of water is 2-3 times higher than that by steam reforming of coal and natural gas and purification of industrial by-product gas.
Therefore, in order to promote the development of hydrogen production from renewable energy, China still needs to explore a feasible way to reduce costs. At present, Guangdong, Sichuan and other places have issued relevant policies to support hydrogen production projects from renewable energy with preferential electricity prices.
In terms of standards, at the beginning of last year, the Standard and Evaluation of Low Carbon Hydrogen, Clean Hydrogen and Renewable Energy Hydrogen put forward by China Hydrogen Energy Alliance was officially released and implemented. This standard has established a quantitative standard and evaluation system for low carbon hydrogen, clean hydrogen and renewable hydrogen based on natural gas hydrogen production process in Europe, and guided the transformation of high carbon emission hydrogen production process to green hydrogen production process. (Reporter Cao Xiuying)
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