In 2030, the demand for electrolyzers is 207GW, up to 286.4 billion! Hydrogen energy storage will explode!

New energy power generation such as photovoltaics and wind power will occupy the main force of the new power system, which provides a huge market for hydrogen energy storage. Since 2021, there have been 22 hydrogen energy storage projects in China.

According to the calculation of ASIACHEM, by 2030, there will be 952GW of wind power photovoltaic projects to solve the downstream application problems. According to the calculation of half (476GW) of green hydrogen production, 165.2 billion standard square meters of green hydrogen will be produced each year, and the demand for electrolyzers will reach 207GW, and the market size will reach 286.4 billion yuan.

How to absorb 2152GW wind power + photovoltaic installed capacity

In the hydrogen energy application scenario, although the hydrogen fuel cell seems to be infinitely popular, the heavy responsibility of new energy power generation in the power system makes the market space for hydrogen energy storage wider.

According to data from the National Energy Administration, as of May 30, 2022, there were 121 GW of photovoltaic power generation projects under construction.

From January to May 2022, the cumulative amount of domestic wind power tenders reached 37.29GW, a year-on-year increase of 94.34%. In 2022, China's newly installed wind power capacity is expected to be 60GW.

This is only a figure for 2022, before that, by the end of 2021, there will be about 330 GW of wind power capacity and about 310 GW of solar power capacity.

According to the estimated wind power photovoltaic installed capacity in 2022, the total installed wind power photovoltaic capacity in China is expected to reach 2152GW in 2030.

According to Chunlin, an analyst at ASIACHEM, for China, there is almost no capacity bottleneck for wind power and photovoltaics. China produces most of the world's PV modules, and it is expected that China's PV module production capacity will be as high as 375GW in 2022.

The production capacity, technology, supply chain and cost of China's wind power and photovoltaics have comprehensive advantages. The production capacity bottleneck in equipment is not obvious, but the consumption bottleneck has been plaguing the new energy power generation industry.

On May 31, 2022, the National New Energy Consumption Monitoring and Early Warning Center released the "National New Energy Grid-connected Consumption in April 2022". In April 2022, the national wind power and photovoltaic utilization rates were 94.8% and 97.6% respectively. ; From January to April 2022, the national wind power and photovoltaic utilization rates are 95.9% and 97.4% respectively. The area with the most serious wind abandonment is western Mongolia, where the utilization rate of wind power from January to April was only 88.2%; followed by eastern Mongolia, Jilin, Shaanxi, Gansu, Xinjiang, and Qinghai, the utilization rate of wind power from January to April was lower than 95%. The province with the most serious light abandonment is Tibet, with a photovoltaic utilization rate of only 76.4% from January to April; followed by Qinghai, with a photovoltaic utilization rate of 91.5% from January to April.

The high proportion of wind power and photovoltaics poses challenges to grid operation. At the same time, the speed of green power installation will far exceed the growth rate of grid consumption capacity. Increasing the proportion of energy storage has become a trend.

Hydrogen energy storage is a new option

The "Notice on Encouraging Renewable Energy Power Generation Enterprises to Build or Purchase Peak Shaving Capacity to Increase the Grid-connected Scale" issued by the National Development and Reform Commission and the National Energy Administration on July 29, 2021 requires that self-built peak shaving resources refer to the Wholly-owned proportion of the construction of pumped storage, chemical energy storage power stations, gas power, solar thermal power stations or flexible transformation of coal power.

There are two options for the extra green power. One is to build a high proportion of energy storage. At present, in order to encourage power generation enterprises to participate in the construction of peak shaving resources in a market-oriented manner, the state and local governments will initially allocate the peak shaving capacity according to the ratio of 15% of the power (the duration of more than 4 hours) beyond the scale beyond the guaranteed grid connection of power grid enterprises, and 20% The above-mentioned ratio of hooks is used for priority grid connection. All localities have clearly proposed that the allocation ratio will be adjusted in a timely manner according to the situation after 2022, and will be announced once a year. In other words, this ratio requirement will likely continue to increase. And a high proportion of energy storage will reduce the project's return on investment.

ASIACHEM found out after calculation:

Taking a 100MW wind power project (20 years of power generation, 2246 annual utilization hours) as an example, the energy storage cost is calculated at 4800 yuan/kW, and the energy storage cost per kWh of power generation is 0.107 yuan.

Taking a 100MW photovoltaic project (power generation for 20 years, annual utilization hours of 1163) as an example, the energy storage cost is calculated at 3600 yuan/kW, and the energy storage cost per kWh of power generation is 0.155 yuan.

The second is green hydrogen production. The produced green hydrogen not only supplies the demand for green hydrogen in the market, but also can be used for energy storage, improving consumption, and minimizing the abandonment of wind and solar energy.

Hydrogen energy storage is an important way to solve the consumption of renewable energy. In 2021, the National Development and Reform Commission and the National Energy Administration issued the "Guiding Opinions on Accelerating the Development of New Energy Storage", which will include hydrogen energy in the category of new energy storage. In the future, the power system with renewable energy as the main body will not only need solar energy, wind power, etc. once Energy also requires hydrogen energy as an energy carrier and energy storage path to cooperate with it.

On June 1 this year, the "14th Five-Year Plan for Renewable Energy Development" once again emphasized the task of "promoting storage and consumption and utilizing renewable energy in a high proportion", and focused on improving the storage capacity of renewable energy, promoting local and nearby Specific measures for renewable energy consumption are proposed from the perspectives of consumption, promotion of delivery and consumption, and promotion of large-scale hydrogen production and utilization of renewable energy. Among them, hydrogen production from renewable energy has the dual functions of energy consumption and storage, which can not only solve the contradiction between the rapid increase in the installed capacity of renewable energy and the capacity of the grid, improve the utilization efficiency of renewable energy, but also expand the energy storage at the source end. In this way, the coupling of hydrogen energy and electricity can be realized, and the safety of the power grid can be improved. While realizing energy storage, green hydrogen can also be directly applied to the terminal as an energy source. Hydrogen production will become an important part of the complete consumption of renewable energy.

Among them, the integration of wind-solar hydrogen storage is a good direction. The policy proposed by Inner Mongolia is that 20% of green electricity is connected to the grid and 80% of hydrogen is produced.

For developers of wind and solar projects, whether to configure long-term energy storage to connect to the Internet, or to produce hydrogen for energy storage, and supply downstream users nearby, has become a choice question that must be weighed.

22 hydrogen energy storage projects have been launched

Converting electrical energy into hydrogen energy can realize large-scale storage of energy across seasons and long periods. Hydrogen energy storage has the advantages of large energy storage capacity, long storage time, clean and pollution-free, etc., and can play an advantage in scenarios where electrochemical energy storage is not applicable. In the scenario of large-capacity long-period regulation, hydrogen energy storage is more economically competitive than electrochemical energy storage.

my country's technology in hydrogen energy storage has gradually matured. Since 2021, 22 hydrogen energy storage-related projects have been under construction or completed.

In November 2021, as the world's largest hydrogen energy storage power generation project, the preliminary design of the Zhangjiakou 200MW/800MWh hydrogen storage power generation project passed the expert review, marking an important step in the application of large-scale hydrogen energy storage peak regulation in my country.

Hydrogen energy is an important means for flexible regulation of new power systems. The advanced electrolyzed water hydrogen production equipment has strong adaptability to power fluctuations, which can realize the second-level and millisecond-level response of input power, provide auxiliary services such as peak regulation and frequency regulation for the power grid, and improve the safety, reliability and flexibility of the power system. It is on this basis that State Grid has undertaken the important task of hydrogen energy storage-related research and development and project construction.

The "Notice on Encouraging Renewable Energy Power Generation Enterprises to Build Their Own or Purchase Peak Shaving Capability to Increase the Grid-connected Scale" issued by the National Development and Reform Commission and the National Energy Administration on July 29, 2021 requires that power grid enterprises should earnestly undertake power grid construction, development and The main responsibility for grid-connected consumption of renewable energy is to coordinate peak regulation capacity building and resource utilization. In the scale of new grid-connected consumption every year, power grid enterprises should assume the main responsibility, and power supply enterprises should appropriately assume the responsibility for grid-connected consumption of renewable energy. . With the advancement of new energy power generation technology, the improvement of efficiency, and the reduction of system peak regulation costs, the scale and proportion of consumption undertaken by power grid enterprises will be reduced in an orderly manner.

Before the release of the document, on June 24, 2021, the Binhu Comprehensive Energy Station established by State Grid in Huzhou, Zhejiang Province, the hydrogen-electricity bidirectional conversion and energy storage integrated system, was successfully put into operation. The production-academia-research-application research team established by State Grid Zhejiang Electric Power has successfully developed a hydrogen-electricity bidirectional conversion and energy storage integrated system, realizing the integration and flexibility of the light-electricity-hydrogen-pile-storage system. The project applies domestic hydrogen production equipment and fuel cells, which supports the domestic development of hydrogen energy production and application equipment.

In September 2021, the joint commissioning test of the State Grid Anhui Lu'an megawatt hydrogen comprehensive utilization station was successfully completed. The demonstration project adopts PEM water electrolysis hydrogen production technology, which can convert excess power into hydrogen energy and store it, instead of thermal power generation for peak regulation, and also has the function of hydrogen energy power generation. The designed annual hydrogen production of the project is 72.3Nm³, and the hydrogen power generation is 1.278 million kWh.

In early June this year, the first national key project of hydrogen-electric coupling led by State Grid landed in Ningbo, Zhejiang. The Cixi Hydrogen-Electric Coupled DC Microgrid Demonstration Project can interconnect the production, storage, and consumption links of electricity, hydrogen, heat and other energy networks, and meet users' needs for electricity, hydrogen, and heat in a zero-carbon way. Realize flexible interaction with the power grid, improve system adjustment capabilities, and provide solutions for the decarbonization of Zhejiang Industrial Park.

The hydrogen-electric coupling demonstration project on Dachen Island in Taizhou, Zhejiang, which is under construction by State Grid, is the first domestic demonstration project for comprehensive utilization of hydrogen energy based on an island scenario. The project makes full use of the island's abundant clean energy to produce hydrogen, which will promote the island's clean energy consumption and power grid flow optimization, improve the system's adaptability and safety against fluctuating sources and loads, and increase the overall energy efficiency to 72%, providing green supply for the island. effective way.

Hydrogen energy storage kWh income of 12 yuan is just enough for the cost

Experts from the China Electric Power Research Institute have studied the economy of typical application scenarios of electro-hydrogen coupling, such as hydrogen production from surplus power on the source side, hydrogen energy storage on the grid side, and direct hydrogen production on the load side, and pointed out:

Using surplus wind, light, water and other renewable energy sources to produce hydrogen at the source side, under the condition of carbon emission constraints, local sales to the market can obtain better returns, but the cost of hydrogen transportation is high, and long-distance transportation to the demand side is not easy. economical;

On the grid side, by using hydrogen energy storage stations to participate in grid auxiliary services and hydrogen sales market, multiple application benefits can be obtained;

On the load side, the abundant wind and photovoltaic resources in the northwest region are transported through the UHV channel to the southeast region, which has a large demand for hydrogen, for direct hydrogen production. Under the mature electricity market price mechanism, "UHV power transmission + load-side hydrogen production" is more economically competitive than the "source-side electricity hydrogen production + pipeline hydrogen transmission" application scenario.

Experts predict that before 2030, the application of hydrogen energy in new power systems will mainly be based on typical demonstrations: in new energy enrichment areas, build wind-solar hydrogen storage green hydrogen production bases; explore the construction of hydrogen storage in power grid nodes such as large-scale new energy collection. Energy power stations, participating in the flexibility adjustment of the power grid; in the national hydrogen fuel cell vehicle demonstration city, focusing on areas with high demand for heavy trucks and logistics vehicles, building a comprehensive energy service station integrating distributed hydrogen production and hydrogenation stations and charging stations according to local conditions.

As far as hydrogen energy storage is concerned, the economics of energy storage is ultimately determined by the price difference between charge and discharge. Specifically, for hydrogen energy storage, it depends on the price difference between hydrogen production and power generation. Calculated based on the electricity price of 0.2 yuan/kWh of renewable energy power generation, the cost of hydrogen production from renewable energy on the power generation side exceeds 10 yuan/kg. Calculated based on the electricity sales price of 20kWh per kilogram of hydrogen and 0.6 yuan/kWh, the revenue of hydrogen energy storage is only 12 yuan. Yuan/kWh, only reaching the same position as the cost of hydrogen production. In the long run, with the increase in the penetration rate of renewable energy power generation, the peak-to-valley difference in electricity prices will gradually widen, and the gradual withdrawal of thermal power as an adjustable power source will make the peak-shaving value of hydrogen energy storage increasingly prominent. ASIACHEM believes that the comprehensive economics of hydrogen energy storage is expected to be greatly improved in the future.

Due to the huge strategic significance of wind power photovoltaic and green hydrogen to China at the global political and economic level, they will receive long-term support from the state. ASIACHEM believes that according to the estimated installed capacity of wind power photovoltaic in 2022, the total installed capacity of wind power photovoltaic in China is expected to reach 2152GW in 2030, and the grid-connected scale of wind power photovoltaic for power grid enterprises is estimated at 1200GW, and there are as many as 952GW wind power photovoltaic need to solve downstream applications question.

The 952GW wind power photovoltaic will produce 165.2 billion standard square meters of green hydrogen every year according to the calculation of half (476GW) of green hydrogen production, which also provides a huge space for the green hydrogen production equipment market such as electrolyzers. ASIACHEM believes that in order to ensure the profitability of wind power photovoltaic projects, super-large-scale electrolysis of water for hydrogen production is required to solve the dilemma of wind power photovoltaic consumption: 207GW of electrolyzers are needed in 2030, and the market size of electrolyzers will reach 286.4 billion yuan.