At the 14th Annual Meeting of the New Champions, also referred to as the Summer Davos, in Tianjin Municipality, the World Economic Forum on June 28 launched a new report outlining a roadmap for China to develop its market for green hydrogen, a key enabler for the country to deliver on its carbon neutrality objective. China aims to peak carbon emissions before 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality before 2060.

China is the world’s largest hydrogen producer and consumer. However, despite the growing focus on green hydrogen in the past few years, challenges of cost, infrastructure and demand are preventing it from making significant contributions to China’s energy transition.

“We need to accelerate the speed and scale of the global energy transition,” Roberto Bocca, head of the Center for Energy and Materials of the World Economic Forum, said at the forum. “Green hydrogen will be a key success factor to deliver on China’s ambitions to become emissions-free by 2060.”

The report, launched in collaboration with Accenture and China Hydrogen Alliance, identifies six key barriers and goals related to cost, infrastructure, market demand, industry standards, certification and technology, as well as evolution and cooperation. To overcome these challenges, the report proposes 35 facilitating measures to be executed in three phases from now until 2030.

The Chinese Government has defined the end of this decade as the deadline for the country to peak its carbon emissions, and the year 2030 marks the start of in-depth decarbonization across multiple industries. This will initiate a new phase of large-scale green hydrogen development. The government’s Medium- and Long-Term Plan for the Development of the Hydrogen Energy Industry (2021-35) defines, for the first time, the strategic importance of hydrogen as an energy source within China’s wider national development policy.

With strong policy guidance and incentives, China has the potential to commercialize green hydrogen technologies to transform its industrial system and the wider economy, the report states. To deliver this new technology at the scale required, China will need to focus on developing the sector through industrial, regional and global collaboration.

“The industry is indeed at an initial stage, yet the public and private sector leaders in China cannot underestimate how catalytic the role of green hydrogen could be,” Liming Chen, Chair of Greater China of World Economic Forum, told the forum. “We need partnerships across sectors, upstream to downstream, to make sure we can accelerate the momentum.”

The World Economic Forum, through its Accelerating Clean Hydrogen Initiative, is committed to bringing its multi-stakeholder approach to curate and strengthen such partnerships for cooperation.

“Cooperation along the value chain, and an even wider ecosystem, is urgently required,” Wei Liu, General Manager of CHN Energy Guohua Energy Investment Co. Ltd. and Secretary-General of China Hydrogen Alliance, said. “Pilot projects will help accelerate the collaboration among the key players. For instance, the development of large-scale green hydrogen bases has been called onto the stage, leading to breakthroughs in key technologies and equipment for green hydrogen and greater integration of the hydrogen-related innovation chain and the industrial chain.”

“Hydrogen is crucial to the net-zero transition of the power sector,” Jianling Deng, President of China Huaneng Group Co. Ltd., stated. “It matches well with large-scale renewable energy such as wind and solar to achieve dynamic energy storage across seasons and regions.”

“The development of the green hydrogen market is vital,” Samantha Zhu, Chairperson of Accenture Greater China, added. “Chinese hydrogen companies, academics and industry platforms have a unique opportunity to advance innovation and progress in the global hydrogen market through collaboration and project-based exchanges. This would be a positive step towards the coordinated development of the hydrogen economy, enabling economic, societal, energy system and security benefits.”

Copyedited by Elsbeth van Paridon

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