China on Tuesday released its first national guideline for the development of industrial standards for the production, storage, transport and use of hydrogen energy.
According to the World Economic Forum’s latest white paper, China is the largest producer and consumer of hydrogen globally, but less than 0.1 percent of the hydrogen it produces comes from renewable sources.
Hydrogen is a versatile source of energy with low carbon emissions and wide application. It has great significance for building a clean, low-carbon emission, safe and efficient energy system and achieving China’s carbon peaking and neutrality goals.
Globally, it has become an important strategic choice for major developed economies seeking to accelerate their energy transformation and upgrading. A growing number of countries are releasing national strategies to support the hydrogen energy industry, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).
Jointly released by several ministries and departments in China, the new guideline aims to accelerate the formulation of relevant technical standards and improve the international standards for hydrogen energy, according to a statement on the website of the State Administration for Market Regulation.
It also clarified the key domestic and international hydrogen energy standardization tasks in the next three years, which include the development of core standards and promotion of international standardization.
World’s largest hydrogen producer
The new guideline for hydrogen energy will add fuel to China’s new-energy and green development sectors, supplementing the plan on the development of hydrogen energy for the 2021-2035 period, released in March.
By 2025, China will put in place a relatively complete hydrogen energy industry development system, with the innovation capability significantly improved and the core technologies and manufacturing processes basically mastered, according to the March plan.
In addition, the China Hydrogen Alliance estimated that the scale of China’s hydrogen energy market will reach 43 million tonnes by 2030, with green hydrogen increasing from 1 percent of energy in 2019 to 10 percent, and the market scale will increase nearly 30 times.
By 2035, the proportion of hydrogen produced from renewable energy in terminal energy consumption will increase significantly, playing an important supporting role in China’s green energy transformation.