BEIJING: Expanding the use of “green hydrogen” will be crucial for China to reach its dual carbon goals as the future growth of power supply will mostly come from non-fossil sectors, analysts say.

       The National Development and Reform Commission and the National Energy Administration jointly issued a 15-year plan to develop the hydrogen energy industry and boost the proportion of such energy generated from renewables.

       The country produced some 33 million tonnes of hydrogen last year, making it the world’s largest producer, and the production scale is expected to reach 43 million tonnes by 2030.

       The China Hydrogen Alliance estimated that green hydrogen will take up more in the energy mix, from 1% in 2019 to 10% by 2030, and the market scale will have increased nearly 30 times by then.

       The hydrogen, mainly produced from natural gas – the current mainstream – generates massive carbon emissions and is known as “gray hydrogen”.

       Blue hydrogen has its carbon emissions captured and stored, or reused, while green hydrogen is generated by renewable energy sources without producing carbon emissions.

       Companies nationwide, private and state-owned, have all laid out plans for a slice of the green hydrogen market in China, either leveraging their location condition or coming up with new industrial parks to develop solar or wind power to produce green hydrogen.

       China Petroleum and Chemical Corp, also known as Sinopec, the world’s largest refiner by volume, has already come up with four green hydrogen projects. These are part of its investment plan of US$4.6bil (RM19.95bil) in the sector through 2025, aiming to boost its annual hydrogen production capacity to 500,000 tonnes by 2025. — China Daily/ANN