China’s largest city announces more than $1bn of investments by state-owned enterprises in new ‘hydrogen corridor’
Source：hydrogeninsight
China’s most populous city has unveiled plans for more than $1bn of investment in H2 projects as part of a state-led push to develop a new intercity “hydrogen corridor”.
At a high-level meeting in Chongqing yesterday, the city’s municipal government announced the establishment of a “hydrogen industry ecosystem alliance” for the planned “Chengdu-Chongqing Hydrogen Corridor” — as well as the launch of 37 hydrogen projects and “application scenarios” (ie, potential use cases) with a total planned investment exceeding 8.3bn yuan ($1.1bn).
State-owned enterprises from Chongqing and the neighbouring provinces of Sichuan and Hebei also signed agreements to jointly develop the “expressway hydrogen corridor” between Chongqing and China’s fourth largest city, Chengdu, which is roughly 300km away.
While China is the world’s leading country for green hydrogen production and usage, the announced plans do not explicitly mention renewable H2 or any climate benefits of the project, suggesting that grey or by-product hydrogen will be used.
The 37 projects and scenarios include hydrogen purification (but no new production), storage, transport, refuelling and end use, but the details are vague.
State-controlled Qingling Group will be supplying hydrogen-powered trucks, the number of which was not revealed.
State-owned Chongqing Machinery & Electronics will conduct “high-end technology and equipment research and development”, focusing on “key core technologies such as liquid organic hydrogen carriers and magnesium-based solid-state storage”.
State-owned Chongqing Chemical and Pharmaceutical Group will build hydrogen purification units with an annual capacity of about 2,700 tonnes.
State-controlled Chongqing Bank will provide financial leasing services for the trucks, including “jointly building a vehicle ownership platform” with the aim of achieving “large-scale operations leveraged by relatively small upfront investment”.
State-owned Shudao Group, Chongqing Expressway Group and Hubei Communications Investment Group (a transport infrastructure company) also jointly signed the “Strategic Cooperation Agreement on Joint Construction and Sharing of the Express Hydrogen Corridor in Chongqing, Sichuan and Hebei”.
The Chengdu-Chongqing Expressway, a motorway between the two cities, already has a hydrogen refuelling station up and running that is operated by a subsidiary of the Chongqing Expressway Group using equipment provided by Chongqing Machinery & Electronics, and has so far refuelled more than 350 vehicles and dispensed more than 12 tonnes of H2.
There are at least three other intercity hydrogen corridors in China: Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, the Yangtze River Delta corridor (which connects Shanghai with the provinces of Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Anhui), and the Pearl River Delta corridor (which incorporates the cities of Guangzhou, Foshan, Shenzhen and Hong Kong).