In the past two years, a number of national and local policies have been introduced to support the development of the hydrogen energy industry. It is reported that the number of hydrogen refueling stations in my country has exceeded 250, ranking first in the world. As an important infrastructure for the industrialization and commercialization of hydrogen energy, the insufficient number of hydrogen refueling stations has restricted the commercial application development of fuel cell vehicles . However, problems such as high cost and lack of equipment performance are still problems that need to be faced in the construction of hydrogen refueling stations. In the face of high costs, how to effectively solve the problem of cost reduction?
Hydrogen refueling stations are divided into external hydrogen supply hydrogenation stations and on-site hydrogen production and refueling stations. The existing hydrogen refueling stations in China are basically external hydrogen refueling stations, that is, after hydrogen is stored and transported to the hydrogenation station, it is compressed, stored and refilled in the hydrogenation station. According to data from the China Hydrogen Energy Alliance, the investment cost for China to build a hydrogenation station with a daily hydrogenation capacity of 500 kilograms and a filling pressure of 35MPa is close to 12 million yuan (excluding land costs), which is about three times that of a traditional gas station.
The current long construction period of hydrogen refueling stations, complicated approval and acceptance processes, high hydrogen prices, expensive imported equipment, and high operation failure rates of core equipment of high-pressure hydrogen systems have directly led to the fact that almost all hydrogen refueling stations built in China are difficult to make a profit.
The core equipment of hydrogenation stations is in urgent need of localization
At present, the equipment cost of hydrogenation stations accounts for about 70% of the investment cost (excluding land costs). Therefore, we must first solve the problem of domestic substitution of core equipment of hydrogen refueling stations in order to promote cost reduction of hydrogen refueling stations. The core equipment of the hydrogenation station relies on imports, including compressor , hydrogenation gun and its hose, flow meter , safety valve , hydrogen pipelines and valves.
Domestic hydrogenation stations use American PDC diaphragm compressors, which account for 70%-75% of the global hydrogen diaphragm compressor market share. However, with the research and development progress of domestic manufacturers, the localization process of hydrogen compressors has accelerated, and domestic manufacturers have launched 90MPa compressors and 70MPa compressors that meet the requirements. Hydrogen storage device filling equipment, station control systems and other equipment are also accelerating local substitution.
In the future, as the localization of core equipment increases and the number of constructions increases, investment in the construction of domestic hydrogenation stations will drop significantly, and it is expected to eventually approach the investment scale of traditional gas stations.
Cost constraints in the production, storage and transportation links
are subject to the hydrogen production, storage and transportation links. To reduce the cost of hydrogen production, we mainly start from the electricity price, electrolyzer, and technology. Tongwei Group Chairman of the Board Liu Hanyuan once said that the cost of photovoltaic power generation in my country has dropped to less than 0.3 yuan/kWh, and some areas have the ability to compete with new coal-fired power generation. It is believed that the cost of renewable energy power will continue to decline in the future. .
Hydrogen storage methods are mainly divided into gaseous hydrogen storage, liquid hydrogen storage and solid hydrogen storage. High-pressure gaseous hydrogen storage is also the main hydrogen storage method at this stage. Under the current domestic technical conditions, the domestic hydrogen storage transportation method mainly uses high-pressure gaseous hydrogen storage combined with tube bundle vehicle transportation, and the cost is high. Compared with foreign technology gaps, it is necessary to break through technical bottlenecks in order to effectively reduce costs and help the development of downstream markets.
Policies need to be improved
Although hydrogen energy policies have emerged frequently in various regions in the past two years, most of them are based on the planning level. Currently, only some cities have issued corresponding regulations on the construction and operation management of hydrogen refueling stations. From the current policy, the approval of commercial land The link is quite complex. Since the hydrogen energy industry is an emerging industry, local governments lack specific policies and systems in terms of planning, project approval, and operation supervision. Land approval objectively limits the construction of hydrogen refueling stations. Hydrogen Future Network believes that local governments should pay attention to the approval process of hydrogen refueling stations and implement relevant policies to assist the construction of hydrogen refueling stations.
The future is bright, so be careful not to rush in.
As a hub connecting upstream and downstream, hydrogenation stations are the core of the industrial chain. From a market perspective, there are currently a small number of domestic hydrogenation stations, which are mainly demonstration operations and serve public areas such as public transportation and logistics vehicles. The market size is small and large-scale commercial applications cannot be carried out in the short term.
It is worth noting that currently capital is more keen on hydrogen fuel cells , vehicle production and other fields. The high cost and limited profitability of hydrogen refueling stations will limit the enthusiasm of enterprises, leading to a freeze on investment.
From the aspects of policies, regulations, processes, standards, fire protection, environmental protection, etc., to the continuous exploration of profit models, the development of hydrogen refueling stations needs to be gradual and step-by-step, and requires mutual cooperation among enterprises, governments and capital.
