The hydrogen fuel cell industry is quietly growing

In recent years, thanks to the rapid update of electric vehicle technology and the promotion of policies, China's new energy automobile industry has witnessed a "blowout" growth. As the core component of electric vehicles, battery technology directly affects or even restricts the development level of new energy automobile industry. At present, the development of new energy automobile industry seems to have entered a "bottleneck period" when it is difficult to effectively break through core difficulties such as poor battery life and long charging time of lithium battery. Hydrogen fuel cell has the advantages of long endurance and fast fuel resupply, which is expected to break the bottleneck of the development of new energy automobile industry.

Hydrogen fuel cell system is a set of power generation system, through hydrogen and oxygen electrochemical reaction, the final discharge is water, compared with the current mainstream lithium battery, more environmentally friendly. According to China battery network, the current lithium battery charging time fast charging mode is generally 30-50 minutes, and compared with the lithium battery as a storage device, the hydrogen fuel cell system itself is the power generation device, fuel - hydrogen, only need 3-5 minutes.

Statistics show that 1,500 fuel cell commercial vehicles were sold worldwide in 2017, of which 1,272 were sold in China. Compared with China's huge market base, the number of 1,272 is actually a very small number. However, the sales volume of fuel cell vehicles in China market was less than 30 in 2016, which shows that fuel cell commercial vehicles witnessed rapid growth in 2017.

It is worth noting that in 2017, the global capital market invested more than 10 billion yuan in the fuel cell industry, among which the Chinese capital exceeded 9 billion yuan, including investments in hydrogen fuel cells such as xiongtao, dayang electric, sanshuo and zhongtong. The entry of social capital comes from the optimistic development prospect of hydrogen fuel cell industry, but it will also provide strong support for the rapid development of hydrogen fuel cell industry.

The hydrogen fuel cell industry is quietly growing

In 2016, the ministry of industry and information technology of the People's Republic of China planned in the route of energy conservation and new energy vehicles that there would be 5,000 hydrogen fuel cell vehicles and 100 hydrogen refueling stations in the market by 2020. By 2025, there will be 50,000 hydrogen fuel cell vehicles with 350 hydrogen refueling stations. By 2030, the number will reach 1 million hydrogen fuel cell vehicles and 1,000 hydrogen refueling stations.

At the same time, local governments have also begun to actively layout the fuel cell industry. In September 2017, Shanghai took the lead from the local government level issued "Shanghai fuel cell car development planning", by 2020, hydrogen fuel cell industry chain can create output in 15 billion in Shanghai, filling stations built 5-10, built two passenger vehicle demonstration area, the scale of running more than 3000 vehicles, to 2025 annual output value of 100 billion, passenger car sales by 20000. Subsequently, hydrogen fuel cell industry development plans have also been issued in suzhou, xi 'an, guangzhou, wuhan, foshan and other places.

In addition, the Japanese government has made plans to put a total of 200,000 hydrogen fuel cell vehicles and 320 hydrogen refueling stations in Japan by 2025. It will have 800,000 hydrogen fuel cell vehicles and 900 hydrogen refueling stations by 2030. Germany said in its hydrogen energy plan released in 2016 that it would invest 1 billion yuan by the end of 2018. 6.1 billion euros to develop the hydrogen industry, and plans to complete 100 hydrogen stations by 2023. Hydrogen fuel cell industry is taken seriously in most countries.

Steady progress was made in the development of hydrogen refueling stations and other supporting infrastructure

Hydrogen refueling stations provide raw materials for hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. If the supporting facilities cannot keep up, it will seriously restrict the development of fuel cell vehicle industry. Statistics show that by the end of 2017, there were 327 refueling stations around the world, mainly in Asia, Europe and North America. China had only three refueling stations before 2015, but by 2017, 13 had been put into operation. There are still 20 under construction in China, and the number is expected to exceed 100 by 2019.

Fuel cells have obvious advantages in the application of commercial vehicles

Different from foreign automobile enterprises, some domestic fuel cell enterprises choose to open the road from commercial vehicles. According to battery China, Shanghai remolding energy technology company launched 500 fuel cell logistics vehicles in Shanghai in 2017. Lin qi, chairman of the board of directors of the company, disclosed to battery China that the company chose to enter the fuel cell commercialization market from logistics vehicles for the following considerations: first, the space arrangement of commercial vehicles is relatively flexible for the fuel cell system; Second, the commercial vehicle operation route is relatively fixed, fixed point line, the hydrogen station layout density demand is small; Third, the fuel cell used in urban bus and logistics distribution has certain promotion significance. Fourth, it is hoped that the fuel cell commercial vehicle market will drive the construction of hydrogenation infrastructure and pave the way for the future passenger vehicle market.

Industry experts said, the commercialization of the automotive fuel cell technology advantage is not sensitive to the vehicle load, the mass ratio of power density, power density is relatively high and the ratio of volume of fuel filling time is very short (about 3-5 minutes will be able to put the fuel supply), the range and load have very big promotion, fuel cell system applied in big load and medium-duty commercial application advantages are more obvious. In electricity and logistics industry fast development today, especially in the large and super large cities have a greater demand for logistics industry under the premise, at the same time for the environment of the city also has a higher request under the premise of fuel cell vehicle logistics is a very good to fill the new energy vehicles in the long life, high load the blank in the field of application.

Industrialization of fuel cell technology challenges

As the most ideal energy saving technology in the future, the industrialization and commercialization of fuel cell technology still face great challenges. According to the opinions of experts in the industry, the challenges faced by the commercialization of fuel cell vehicle can be classified into the following categories:

First, standard classes. Fuel cell vehicles have the superior characteristics of long endurance, which means that they need to carry more hydrogen. Currently, the hydrogen storage system, which is 70Mpa, needs to be broken through. In the field of logistics application, for end users, they are more concerned about operating costs, and the use of hydrogen requires enterprises to strengthen technology research and development in the storage and transportation. At the same time, fuel cell vehicle standards also need to be improved.

Second, resource class. First, the construction of hydrogen refueling station facilities. The commercial application of fuel cell vehicles cannot be separated from the supporting construction of hydrogen refueling station facilities. Second, the independent development and localization of fuel cell system components is a key path to cost reduction, which needs the support of supply chain and component manufacturers. Third, policy-oriented market pressure. At present, the new energy vehicle market is a subsidy-driven market. After there is no subsidy or subsidy decline, this pressure must be borne and there must be a solution.

Third, cognitive class. One is the over-interpretation of hydrogen safety. For a long time, due to the lack of sufficient public understanding of hydrogen energy, there are still doubts about the safety of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, which is also a major factor hinting the rapid development of hydrogen fuel cell vehicle industry. The second is the social science of fuel cell technology. Although fuel cell is also called "battery", it is different from energy storage battery. It is actually a power generation device, and its energy is actually stored in the hydrogen storage system. Third, the diversification of global technology routes. At present, the fuel cell is still in the development stage, the market has not yet formed a scale, and the enterprise is not clear on the technical route. Experts believe that the future of fuel cells in the technical route still need to determine 1-2 very clear technical route.

As a rising star in the new energy vehicle industry, fuel cell vehicles still have a long way to go in terms of technology research and development, supporting facilities construction and large-scale commercial application. In the face of the above challenges, enterprises, government and society need to jointly promote the development of fuel cell vehicle industry.

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