What Sinopec does on green hydrogen in China
Chinese petrochemical giant Sinopec wants to become the first national supplier of green and low-carbon hydrogen by 2025
Chinese state-owned petrochemical company Sinopec plans to carry out its first green hydrogen project (made from renewable sources) in Ordos, a city in the Inner Mongolia region, by 2022.
The project was included among those considered crucial for Inner Mongolia in 2021. Through the electricity generated by wind and solar energy, 10 thousand tons of hydrogen per year will be produced, which will subsequently be consumed by the Zhongtian coal-to-chemicals plant. Hechuang of Sinopec in Ordos.
In addition to allowing a reduction in the site's carbon emissions (hydrogen is in fact a clean fuel that releases water vapor), Sinopec said the project will help the company achieve its goal of being the first national supplier of "clean" hydrogen "And low-carbon by 2025.
The president of Sinopec, Zhang Yuzhou, had declared in this sense that the innovations that have taken place in recent years in photovoltaic technology have enormously reduced the costs of solar energy per kilowatt hour, opening up the possibility of a competitive green hydrogen industry.
THE AMBITIONS AND AGREEMENTS OF SINOPEC
Today China is the largest producer of hydrogen in the world, even if the most widespread variant in the country is the "gray" one, obtained from fossil fuels – first of all from coal, for two thirds – and therefore polluting. Sinopec is worth 14 percent of the total hydrogen produced in the country, or 3.5 million tons per year: it obtains it mainly as a by-product of refining activities.
Sinopec aims at carbon neutrality by 2050, anticipating the national target set by the Chinese government by ten years.
The company recently announced its intention to build one thousand hydrogen refueling stations (of which one hundred by the end of the year), five thousand charging points and seven thousand photovoltaic stations distributed by 2025. For the moment, however, only two hydrogen stations – those in Guangdong and Shanghai – have reached breakeven point and covered construction costs.
In 2021 Sinopec entered into several agreements with other companies as part of its clean energy strategy: for example with the new energy vehicle manufacturer NIO and with the solar energy device company LONGi Green Energy Technology.
HYDROGEN AND ENERGY INDEPENDENCE
Sinopec's interest in hydrogen reflects the government's willingness to reduce dependence on foreign oil supplies, of which China is the world's largest importer. According to Beijing, the transition to non-fossil fuels will make the country more self-sufficient in terms of energy.
However, China still has to adopt a national strategy on hydrogen aimed at reducing the costs of electrolysers, the machinery necessary for the production of the green variant. The central government is focusing rather on the transport sector: by 2025 the country wants to have more than ten thousand fuel cell vehicles.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/energia/sinopec-idrogeno-verde-cina/ on Sat, 05 Jun 2021 06:00:52 +0000.