The two major urban agglomerations in northern and southern China are poised to forge close collaborative ties.
According to reports from Jiemian News and Shanghai Securities News, the 26th China International Industry Fair is held in Shanghai from October 12 to 16. During the event, the pilot city cluster for comprehensive hydrogen energy application of "Northeast China (including Eastern Inner Mongolia) - Yangtze River Delta" was officially launched in Shanghai. At the launch ceremony, two groups of strategic cooperation agreements were signed, covering key directions including the construction of hydrogen energy standard systems, joint research on core technologies, and large-scale promotion of fuel cells.
Recently, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and other relevant ministries and commissions jointly issued an official reply, approving in principle the pilot program of the Northeast China (including Eastern Inner Mongolia) - Yangtze River Delta comprehensive hydrogen energy application city cluster, with a pilot period of 4 years. Led by Shanghai, the city cluster unites 14 cities from 7 provinces and regions including Inner Mongolia, Liaoning, Jilin, Heilongjiang, Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Anhui, forming a cross-regional connectivity pattern of "two-pole driving and one-belt serial connection".
Hydrogen energy has the triple attributes of energy, resource and energy storage medium. It features high industrial technological content, prominent low-carbon property and huge development space, and is listed as one of the six future industries in the Outline of the 15th Five-Year Plan.
However, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology previously clearly stated that China's hydrogen energy application is facing problems such as insufficient scenarios, shortage of green hydrogen, high price, and difficulties in storage, transportation and refueling. The business model has not yet taken shape, and the market demand remains to be released. It is necessary to rely on application traction, identify and solve problems in the process of "use", so as to support this emerging field to get on track and achieve further development.
In March this year, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and two other departments jointly launched the national selection of comprehensive hydrogen energy application pilots, aiming to expand hydrogen energy application scenarios from fuel cell vehicles to diversified qualified fields such as transportation and industry, and explore a number of replicable and promotable commercial application modes.
Recently, all the 5 pilot city clusters have been unveiled, including the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, the Northeast China (including Eastern Inner Mongolia) - Yangtze River Delta region, the Xinjiang-Chengdu-Chongqing Twin-City Economic Circle, and the Yellow River "Ji Zi Wan" - Central Plains region.
The five major city clusters adopt two types of development strategies: the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region and the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area focus on fuel cell vehicle scenarios, while the Northeast China (including Eastern Inner Mongolia) - Yangtze River Delta region, the Xinjiang-Chengdu-Chongqing Twin-City Economic Circle, and the Yellow River "Ji Zi Wan" - Central Plains region focus on the industrial field.
Among them, the core task of the Northeast China (including Eastern Inner Mongolia) - Yangtze River Delta city cluster is to build a large cross-regional green fuel transportation corridor, and solve the practical problem of scattered distribution of hydrogen energy resources and consumer markets in China.
Behind this is a set of mismatched figures: about 90% of China's green hydrogen production capacity is concentrated in the "Three-North" regions, while more than 70% of the consumption demand is located in the industrial-dense eastern regions. On one hand, "the produced hydrogen cannot be transported out", on the other hand, "the demanded hydrogen cannot be accessed".
In the specific division of labor, the Northeast China (including Eastern Inner Mongolia) - Yangtze River Delta city cluster forms the pattern of "two-pole driving and one-belt serial connection" ——
The Northeast China and Eastern Inner Mongolia regions, which are rich in wind and solar resources, are the supply pole; the Yangtze River Delta, which gathers scientific and technological innovation, high-end manufacturing, port shipping and huge terminal consumption market, is the consumption pole; Liaoning is located in the middle, taking Shenyang, Dalian and Yingkou as key nodes, acting as the "core hub" of combined land and sea transportation.
The tasks are carried out around the integrated system of "production - storage - transportation - application - trade", which will strive to open up the green energy artery of "transporting northern hydrogen to the south and reserving southern resources for northern use", realize the complementarity of hydrogen energy resources, interconnection of technologies and in-depth integration of industrial chains between the north and the south, and also promote the in-depth docking of the two major national strategies of "comprehensive revitalization of Northeast China" and "integrated development of the Yangtze River Delta".
This article is from the WeChat Official Account "City Evolution", the author is LIU Yanmei, and it is released with authorization from 36Kr.