Today I am going to talk about hydrogen fuel. So what will the topic of hydrogen fuel be so hot in the last two years? The background is that in December 2020, Chinese President Xi Jinping delivered an important speech at the Paris Climate Summit and announced a series of independent contributions from China. New initiatives. In the main theme of the conference: Strive to reach the peak of carbon dioxide emissions by 2030 and strive to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060, Xi Jinping further announced that by 2030, China’s GDP carbon dioxide emissions will drop by more than 65% from 2005. Petrochemical energy will account for about 25% of primary energy consumption, forest accumulation will increase by 6 billion cubic meters over 2005, and the total installed capacity of wind power and solar power will reach more than 1.2 billion kilowatts.
The EU’s carbon dioxide emission regulations require a reduction of 15% in 2025 and 30% in 2030 based on carbon dioxide emissions in 2019. With the global consensus on reducing CO2 emissions, various alternative energy sources have been launched. As for China, which has more than 300 million traditional diesel locomotives, the amount of carbon dioxide emission reduction is huge, and the total amount of carbon dioxide emissions from heavy commercial vehicles is relatively large. This has given birth to a series of regulations and policies that will be introduced to reduce carbon emissions. We know that in the passenger vehicle field, hybrid and pure electric technology routes are now mainly used. As early as 2018, Nissan announced the suspension of the plan to develop fuel cell vehicles in cooperation with Daimler and Ford, focusing on the development of electric vehicles and passenger vehicles. Not suitable for hydrogen fuel cells, the cost alone is more than twice that of ordinary electric vehicles, and electric/hybrid vehicles have entered the mass production stage following the introduction of national policies. Commercial vehicles are very suitable for fuel cells, because trucks are large in size and can accommodate battery reactors and hydrogen storage tanks. In addition, hydrogen refueling stations cause high risks, and most of them are built along provincial highways and national highways. In the field of commercial industry, hydrogen fuel is the technological route currently being developed and ready to be used worldwide. Because the product of hydrogen fuel is water, no pollutants are discharged. As a new energy material, hydrogen fuel has two main types of utilization: one is to burn hydrogen directly, and the other is to use the electrochemical reaction of hydrogen to generate energy and store energy, that is, hydrogen fuel cells. The current mainstream is the hydrogen fuel cell route.
The principle of the hydrogen fuel cell is very simple. It uses hydrogen and oxygen to transfer electrons under the action of a catalyst to generate current in the circuit. The fuel cell does not pollute the environment. It is through electrochemical reaction, rather than using combustion (gasoline, diesel) or energy storage (battery)-the most typical traditional backup power solution. Combustion will release pollutants like COx, NOx, SOx gas and dust. As mentioned above, fuel cells only produce water and heat. If hydrogen is produced by renewable energy sources (photovoltaic panels, wind power generation, etc.), the entire cycle is a process that completely does not produce harmful emissions. At the same time, compared to directly burning hydrogen on the basis of internal combustion engines, hydrogen fuel cells have higher chemical energy conversion efficiency, because burning hydrogen will generate greater heat dissipation, and the thermal efficiency is only about 50%; if hydrogen is an on-board energy source, the storage tank The energy density of hydrogen as a whole is much lower than that of alternative fuels such as natural gas, petroleum gas, methanol.
As for the energy source of new energy for commercial vehicles, is it the current relatively more widely used lithium battery technology that is dominant, or is the cleaner hydrogen energy more promising? Let’s find out.
First of all, from the perspective of technology and production, the current lithium battery technology is mature and the industrial chain is complete, allowing mass production; while hydrogen fuel cell research and development and manufacturing are more difficult, and the key technologies are mainly mastered in countries such as Europe, America and Japan, and related domestic industrial chains. Basically in a blank state.
Secondly, let’s compare the cost of the two: because lithium batteries can already be produced on a large scale, both the use cost and the construction cost after commercialization are acceptable to consumers and manufacturers. The cost of hydrogen energy is still high at present. The construction of a hydrogen refueling station requires an investment of tens of millions, and a charging station can be obtained at less than one-third of the cost. In addition, in the process of using hydrogen fuel cells, platinum is needed to catalyze the conversion of energy. That’s right, the platinum in the platinum diamond ring is very expensive. Before there are alternative materials or large-scale, hydrogen energy is difficult to be widely popularized.
Finally, the performance difference between the two is still very large: everyone is generally concerned about the cruising range of new energy vehicles. Hydrogen energy can easily reach the endurance level of 600km, while lithium battery vehicles are only part of the high-end models based on the current technological progress. It can reach this level and is greatly affected by the low temperature environment. In terms of charging time, lithium batteries generally take several hours to fully charge, while hydrogenation takes only 3 minutes.
Of course, whether it is hydrogen energy or lithium batteries, their competitors are not each other, but fuel vehicles. In the context of advocating carbon neutrality in the future, whoever can take the lead in solving their own deficiencies and problems is expected to seize the opportunity on the new energy track. At present, the battery life of lithium batteries is short, and the hydrogen refueling speed is fast. Obviously, hydrogen fuel cells are more suitable for commercial transportation operations that require high horsepower.
The major obstacle to the current mass production of hydrogen energy is the hardware investment cost. Because hydrogen is a flammable and explosive gas, the construction quality and control requirements of related products and base stations are extremely expensive. The cost of hydrogen storage tanks alone is also very high.
There is also the direct combustion of hydrogen to drive the engine. Compared with the hydrogen fuel cell, the hydrogen engine will produce nitrogen oxides in addition to water during the combustion process. This requires the engine to be equipped with exhaust gas purification devices, and the engine is also due to combustion There will be a large heat transfer loss, which makes the thermal efficiency of hydrogen fuel engines much less than that of hydrogen fuel cells. This is why all major mainstream manufacturers are now developing hydrogen fuel cell technology. During the two sessions of this year, Hanma Technology Group (formerly Anhui Valin Xingma Automobile, now part of Geely Group) Chairman Liu Hanru proposed to include hydrogen internal combustion engine into the hydrogen energy development strategy, encourage the development of hydrogen engines and vehicles, and carry out core technologies. Tackling key problems. Its main focus is that hydrogen engines have longer battery life and lower cost than fuel cells. At the same time, it is convenient to improve the original internal combustion engine structure, which also gives traditional internal combustion engine manufacturers more living space. The author believes that both models can be vigorously promoted. The purpose is to reduce carbon emissions, and both can be achieved. In the future, they may play a major role in different markets and fields, just like the existence of gasoline vehicles and diesel vehicles. .
After 2020, the country has successively issued relevant hydrogen energy industry standards and support policies, and new industries have been issued across the country. The world is also ushering in an outbreak period. The following is a summary of the global hydrogen energy industry investment information since 2020 for everyone:
Hydrogen fuel cell:
1. Hyundai Motor established a hydrogen fuel cell brand in December and plans to build a hydrogen fuel cell plant in Guangzhou;
2. Bosch China and Qingling Motors signed an agreement in December to establish a joint venture to jointly develop and sell fuel cells;
3. In November, Daimler Group signed an agreement with China’s Geely Automobile Group to jointly develop the next generation of hydrogen fuel cells. The products will first be put on the German and Chinese markets in the future.
4. Toyota announced in June that it has jointly established a hydrogen fuel cell research and development company led by Toyota with six companies including Yihuatong, BAIC, FAW, Dongfeng and GAC. The company is named as United Fuel Cell System Research and Development (Beijing) Co., Ltd. the company
5. In April, Volvo Group announced the establishment of a joint venture with Daimler Trucks to produce fuel cells on a large scale;
6. Cummins announced the establishment of a joint venture company with NPROXX in June to further enhance hydrogen storage capacity;
7. Siemens announced in November that it will jointly develop hydrogen-powered fuel cell trains and hydrogen refueling stations with Deutsche Bahn;
8. In November, Cummins and Navistar will jointly develop an 8-level heavy-duty truck powered by hydrogen fuel cells;
9. In March, Toyota and Hino will jointly produce and develop hydrogen fuel cell heavy trucks
10. FEV launched a new generation of 120kW fuel cell stack test bench in October
11. In January this year, the British Ricardo Engineering Company invested 2.5 million pounds to establish a hydrogen development and test facility in Kazakhstan.
12. In January this year, MITSUBISHI announced the establishment of a hydrogen energy R&D and testing center in Hamburg.
13. In January of this year, Westport Fuel Systems Inc. announced that it has agreed to jointly carry hydrogen HPDI 2.0 fuel system with Scania Scania for use in the latest Scania commercial vehicle engines.
Hydrogen engine
1. On 2021/3, Westport Fuel Systems Inc. announced that it has successfully started a heavy-duty internal combustion engine running on hydrogen (H2) fuel using its patented and proprietary high-pressure direct injection (HPDI) 2.0 system. And it is planned to be used in Scania’s commercial vehicle engines first.
2. In 2021/3, AVL announced that it was developing the latest generation of hydrogen engines tailored specifically for heavy-duty vehicles. AVL used a 12.8-liter natural gas engine as the development basis and set its performance target at 350kW.
China’s hydrogen fuel market
At present, Shandong Province is far ahead in China’s hydrogen energy pilot construction. The hydrogen energy industry chain of manufacturing, storage, transportation, and application is basically complete, and the industrial development has taken shape. An industrial cluster formed by Weichai as the leader, and construction of hydrogen refueling stations and operation of about 2,000 hydrogen fuel cell vehicles in Jinan, Weifang, and Qingdao. In 2021, more than 40 new hydrogen energy industry projects, such as new construction, continued construction, and technological transformation, will be stepped up, with a total investment scale of more than 30 billion yuan.
