On April 17, Zhang Yuzhuo, Chairman and Party Secretary of the Group, was a guest on CCTV's "Dialogue" program to talk freely about the development and layout of Sinopec's hydrogen energy industry in the context of carbon peaking and carbon neutrality.
Hydrogen energy is an important direction of future energy technology revolution and industrial development, and an important means to achieve carbon peak and carbon neutrality. Sinopec is accelerating the construction of the "one base, two wings and three new" industrial structure, seizing the major strategic opportunities of hydrogen energy development, and setting the key to the overall development of hydrogen energy as the company's main development direction of new energy business, and gradually nurturing and Strengthen Sinopec's integrated industrial chain of hydrogen energy production, supply and marketing, and promote the establishment of China's first hydrogen energy company.
Sinopec has the largest hydrogen production capacity in China and has accumulated experience in storage, transportation and use
At present, Sinopec has the largest hydrogen production capacity in China, with an annual production capacity of 3.5 million tons, accounting for 14% of the national hydrogen production. In addition, Sinopec has a solid foundation in the transportation, storage, refueling, and use of hydrogen, and this is where Sinopec has the confidence to build the first hydrogen energy company.
At present, the hydrogen energy industry mainly includes four links: hydrogen production, hydrogen transmission, hydrogenation, and hydrogen use.
In terms of hydrogen production, there are currently three main hydrogen production methods in the industry: by-product hydrogen purification, fossil energy reforming hydrogen production, and hydrogen production by electrolysis of water. Sinopec's refining and chemical enterprises' industrial by-product hydrogen, coal-to-hydrogen, and natural gas-to-hydrogen technologies have been relatively mature, laying the foundation for Sinopec's development of the hydrogen energy industry.
"The refineries are distributed all over the country, providing the possibility for hydrogen refueling stations covering the whole country in the future. In addition, the location of the refinery also considers the distribution of water sources, which provides advantageous conditions for the next step of electrolyzing water to produce green hydrogen." The hydrogen energy expert of the division said.
In terms of hydrogen transportation, according to my country's relevant laws and regulations, hydrogen is currently not managed as an energy source in my country, but as a hazardous chemical management. Hydrogen storage and transportation require high professionalism. As an energy and chemical company integrating upstream, midstream, and downstream, Sinopec has many years of experience in gas-liquid storage and transportation and hazardous chemical storage and transportation management. It has built three hydrogen long-distance pipelines, of which the Baling-Changling hydrogen pipeline is 42 kilometers long. , Is the longest hydrogen long-distance pipeline in China.
In terms of hydrogenation and use of hydrogen, there are currently very few hydrogen energy application scenarios in my country and even in the world. In the field of hydrogen vehicle transportation that the public is more familiar with, there is a controversy over whether to develop hydrogen refueling stations first or to develop hydrogen vehicles first. Hydrogen energy is at the initial stage of development and requires the efforts of contributors in every chain of the industry. As a large-scale energy and chemical company, Sinopec can cooperate with domestic and foreign auto companies to jointly cultivate the hydrogen energy commercial vehicle and passenger car market; on the other hand, Sinopec can make full efforts in scientific research, production, sales and other fields. Among them, hydrogen refueling stations are the focus of hydrogen energy infrastructure construction. At present, the reconstruction and expansion of hydrogen refueling stations on the basis of gas stations has proven to be an important way to speed up the network layout of hydrogen refueling stations in Japan, the United States and other countries and regions. Sinopec has the largest transportation energy marketing network in China. The marginal cost of rebuilding and expanding hydrogen refueling stations is low, and it can quickly deploy the hydrogen refueling station network system.
System layout of the entire hydrogen energy industry chain to help original technological breakthroughs
At present, the bottleneck restricting the development of hydrogen energy is mainly concentrated in two aspects: one is the cost problem caused by factors such as immature technology; the other is the imperfect laws and regulations, insufficient application scenarios, and immature business models.
Hydrogen energy has given new connotations to the "one base, two wings, three new" industrial structure. Sinopec has made breakthroughs in many fields by leveraging its strong R&D, production advantages and network advantages.
In September 2020, Gaoqiao Petrochemical's high-purity hydrogen production demonstration device was successfully started up. This is the first high-purity hydrogen production demonstration device with independent intellectual property rights of Sinopec. The product hydrogen purity is 99.999%, and its raw material is low-cost refining. The by-product hydrogen of the device adopts the highly selective directional impurity removal special adsorbent independently developed by the Dalian Institute. It has the advantages of low investment, small area and low energy consumption, which will effectively promote the reduction of the cost of hydrogen for fuel cell vehicles.
At present, the 2000 standard cubic meters per hour high-purity hydrogen demonstration project for fuel cell vehicles built by Yanshan Petrochemical and Guangzhou Petrochemical has been officially put into operation, and the high-purity hydrogen will be supplied to the outside after obtaining the filling permit. The first hydrogen filling facility in Hainan Province, which was designed and constructed by Hainan Refinery and Chemical, was put into use on April 16, solving the problem of the source of high-purity hydrogen on the island and making a positive contribution to the development of hydrogen energy in Hainan Province.
Everything will stand beforehand. Over the years, Sinopec's investment in scientific research and advance deployment have given more confidence in the development of hydrogen energy.
In September 2018, Sinopec established the New Energy Research Institute to provide key technical support and decision-making consultation for Sinopec’s development of the hydrogen energy industry. Since its establishment more than two years ago, the New Energy Research Institute has built a hydrogen purification, electrolysis of water hydrogen and fuel cell technology research and development platform, undertook the key research and development project of the Ministry of Science and Technology-hydrogen purification technology research for fuel cell vehicles, and developed the by-product hydrogen of the refinery Production of special adsorbents for fuel cell-grade hydrogen. Successfully developed platinum-carbon cathode catalysts and iridium-based anode catalysts for hydrogen production from electrolysis of water, completed the patent network layout, and used self-developed catalysts to assemble 15-kilowatt-class proton exchange membrane water electrolysis hydrogen production equipment, and the energy efficiency index reached the domestic leading level.
The major research institutes combine actual conditions to carry out scientific research in many fields such as new materials. The high-purity hydrogen analysis and detection technology developed by the Institute of Science and Technology has obtained the qualification certification of CMA and CNAS, and has the qualification of fuel cell hydrogen detection. The Dalian Institute is currently accelerating the promotion of full-process solutions for all categories of hydrogen sources to solve the problems of long processes in the entire industry chain, uneven development of upstream, midstream, and downstream, dependence on imports of some key core equipment, and high cost of hydrogen sources.
Green Hydrogen will become the home field in the future, hydrogen refueling is as convenient as refueling
During the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, Sinopec plans to build a million-ton green hydrogen demonstration project, and the preliminary work of the green hydrogen project is currently being accelerated.
"According to the current situation, the Xinjiang project is expected to become the world's largest green hydrogen production project after completion." Chen Wengang of the Development Planning Department of Xinxing Company told reporters that the company is deploying solar power generation hydrogen production in Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia solar power generation plus wind power hydrogen production projects. , The annual green hydrogen production scale of the two projects exceeds that of similar projects in the world.
Hydrogen production by electrolysis of renewable energy, also known as green hydrogen, is the most environmentally friendly way to produce hydrogen. It has a high cost and faces a series of hydrogen production, hydrogen storage and hydrogen storage caused by the high volatility of power sources such as photovoltaics and wind power. Technical issues such as control systems.
Sinopec has assigned this task to Xinxing Company.
"The biggest bottleneck for hydrogen production from renewable energy sources such as photovoltaics and wind power is to couple and control the two links of power generation and hydrogen production, while reducing the cost of hydrogen." Chen Wengang said. In response, Xinxing established a world-first hydrogen generation technology model from fluctuating power sources, breaking through a series of technical problems and forming proprietary control strategies and control technologies.
At the same time, in order to meet the needs of the use of green hydrogen in hydrogen-based transportation in eastern cities, Xinxing simultaneously deployed two small-scale photovoltaic power generation hydrogen production projects in Shandong, providing experience for eastern coastal cities to explore green hydrogen development approaches for transportation.
Hydrogenation infrastructure is an important link in the utilization of hydrogen energy. Sinopec has now fully started relevant construction. In addition to the 10 hydrogen refueling stations that are already in operation, 100 hydrogen refueling stations will be completed and operated this year. During the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, 1,000 hydrogen refueling stations will be built. Hydrogenation is as convenient as refueling. In the plan of Sinopec, the gas station will gradually transform into an integrated gas station of "oil, gas, hydrogen, electric service".
Source: Chemical Network
