Fueling the future

[Caribbeans]

Employees refuel a hydrogen-powered truck at Daxing International Hydrogen Energy Demonstration Zone in Beijing, on October 18, 2022 -ZHENG LIANG

Fueling the future

Beijing Review | Zhou Lin | 2023-01-18

In the sprawling Daxing International Hydrogen Energy Demonstration Zone, adjacent to the new international airport in south Beijing, a large white building resembling a spaceship is an eye-catcher. Known as Hypower, it is the world's largest hydrogen refueling station. With eight fuel pumps and a daily hydrogenation capacity of 4.8 tons, it beats all competitors across the globe.

The demonstration zone operates with the support of targeted policies and funding, and the 139 enterprises in it are provided with hydrogen testing facilities and business services as well as assistance in putting their technologies in application. Ren Juanjuan, Deputy Director of the Economic and Information Bureau of Daxing District, where the zone is located, said the enterprises include both upstream and downstream hydrogen companies, who have built their research and development (R&D) and manufacturing centers there. The result is a full industrial chain of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles and an integrated hydrogen energy innovation ecosystem serving Beijing and its two neighbors, Tianjin Municipality and Hebei Province.

Hydrogen fuel future

The development of hydrogen energy has gained more momentum after China issued, in March 2022, a medium and long-term plan for the development of the hydrogen energy industry by 2035. One target of the plan is to build five hydrogen fuel cell vehicle demonstration city clusters. Beijing, one of the core cities, has its own plan for the development of the industry. The plan envisions the construction of an industrial chain ecosystem and a high-end hydrogen equipment manufacturing and application demonstration zone in the southern part of the city by 2025. Before the end of 2022, there should be five to eight leading enterprises in the industrial chain with international influence, and the value of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei industrial chain should be higher than 50 billion yuan ($7.1 billion). The capital would also have 37 hydrogen refueling stations by the end of 2022.

Hydrogen fuel cell manufacturer SinoHytec, the first company of its kind to be listed on the sci-tech innovation board at the Shanghai Stock Exchange in 2020, is located in the Daxing demonstration zone. Though its production line has an annual output of 3,000 hydrogen engines, there are only eight human workers, whose job is to assemble the precision parts. Hi-tech robots shuttle back and forth along the production line, completing all the manual tasks such as lifting parts...more
http://www.bjreview.com/China/202301/t20230118_800318837.html