Foreword
Hydrogen energy has dual attributes of energy and raw materials, and green hydrogen is a key path to achieve global carbon neutrality and national energy security. After entering the marketization stage, hydrogen energy will become a bulk commodity, and the green hydrogen industry will have the characteristics of global market competition and reconstruct the competition pattern of the global energy market. Countries around the world attach great importance to the development of the green hydrogen industry, and when the green hydrogen industry has not yet developed on a large scale, many countries and regions in Europe, the United States, Japan, South Korea, and China have cooperated and competed at the level of policy, technology, and other levels to compete for industry leadership and seize market opportunities, and the competition trend of the global green hydrogen market has begun to appear. The emergence of the global market for green hydrogen has brought new market demand and technical needs to the hydrogen energy industry, as well as new industrial opportunities. Hydrogen Cloud Chain hopes to analyze the competition pattern of the global green hydrogen market, explore the challenges and opportunities of the green hydrogen industry, and how to win in the fierce green hydrogen market competition.
Bullet point:
The competition pattern of the global green hydrogen industry is undecided. From a policy perspective, Europe, the United States, Japan, South Korea and other regions plan fast but the market is slow, and the Chinese market is fast but slow to plan.
2. Cost reduction is the lowest factor driving the development of the green hydrogen industry, but the carbon neutrality policy provides a new starting point, a new direction and a new logic for the development of the green hydrogen industry.
3. The two key inflection points of the industrial outbreak are that the cost of green hydrogen reaches 1 of that of gray hydrogen5x and 1x are two key inflection points in the green hydrogen market.
4. Improving the capacity of equipment coupling with green electricity and strengthening cooperation with wind and solar power stations and hydrogen-using units are the key development paths.
1. The global green hydrogen market pattern
As of the first half of 2023, the competitive landscape of the global green hydrogen industry is undecided, and countries are already inCooperation and competition have been carried out in green hydrogen application planning, electrolysis equipment production capacity, electrolysis equipment technology development, and green hydrogenAt present, there are characteristics such as fast planning and slow market in Europe, the United States, Japan and South Korea, and the fast market and slow planning in China: Europe, the United States, Japan and South Korea and other places have taken the lead in national policies and project planning, but the actual progress is relatively slow; China has been slow to respond to national policies, but the market has moved quickly and has achieved more than half of the world's electrolyzer capacity and installed capacity. Based on the experience of new energy and other industries, China is expected to replicate the achievements of photovoltaic and electric vehicles in the green hydrogen industry.
1. Green hydrogen planning of major countries: Europe and the United States are radical, and China is "Buddhist".
By 2030, the green hydrogen production capacity in Europe and the United States is planned to reach 10 million tons per year, and Japan and South Korea will also reach the million ton level. At the national level, China has only proposed to achieve 200,000 tonnes of green hydrogen capacity by 2025.
Europe and the United States plan to complete the replacement of gray hydrogen by 2030. According to IEA data, in 2021, the global demand for hydrogen will exceed 94 million tons, of which the United States and Europe will account for about 14% and 9% of the world's total, corresponding to about 13 million tons and 9.5 million tons, while the green hydrogen plan of Europe and the United States in 2030 has reached 10 million tons.
According to the IEA**, global hydrogen demand is around 1about 300 million tons, and the total demand growth is about 40%. Therefore, according to the green hydrogen production capacity plan, Europe and the United States are expected to basically complete the replacement of existing gray hydrogen by 2030.
China has not yet proposed a medium- to long-term plan for green hydrogen production capacity. China accounts for 30% of the world's hydrogen demand, or about 28 million tonnes, but has no plans for 2030. Hydrogen Cloud Chain believes that the main reason is that China's hydrogen energy industry has the characteristics of "bottom-up" development, does not set long-term development goals, and promotes industrial development by the market, which is relatively "Buddhist".
Capacity competition
Hydrogen production from renewable energy water electrolysis is currently the most important production method of green hydrogen, and electrolyzer is the key component of green hydrogen production, so the production capacity layout of green hydrogen can be reflected in the capacity layout of electrolyzer at this stage.
Electrolyzer capacity is rapidly overcapacity. Before 2022, electrolyzer capacity is the focus of achieving green hydrogen capacity planning, and Europe has frequently questioned whether electrolyzer capacity can meet green hydrogen planning. After 2022, global electrolyzer companies will accelerate the expansion of electrolyzer production capacity. According to BNEF data, the total production capacity of the top 20 global electrolyzer production capacity was 14GW at the end of 2022, and the total production capacity of the top 20 global electrolyzer production capacity is expected to be 26 by the end of 20234GW and still evolving at a rapid pace. Electrolyzers have gone from "expected undercapacity" to "severe overcapacity" in almost one year.
Electrolyzers are expected to be "produced in China and used in the world". With the continuous development of the electrolyzer market, China is expected to continue its cost advantage and establish technical advantages by virtue of scale effect, so as to realize the electrolyzer "production in China and application in the world", and then replicate the achievements of lithium battery and photovoltaic industry.
3. Technological competition
The competition of electrolyzers mainly includes technology competition between countries and competition of different technology routes.
Europe, the United States and Japan lead the way in patents, and China attaches great importance to application innovation. According to IEA data, Japan's patent applications for electrolysis hydrogen production account for 28%, ranking first in the world; The U.S. followed at 13 percent; China's contribution to hydrogen patents is smaller. Hydrogen Cloud Chain believes that the main reason is that the IEA statistics are international patents, while Chinese companies have only declared domestic patents in most cases, and at the same time, China at this stage pays more attention to achieving breakthroughs in application and technological progress in development.
Electrolysis technology continues to innovate, and the boundaries of different routes tend to be blurred. At present, due to the cost advantage, ALK products occupy an absolute market position in China, and have also achieved catch-up and overtake of PEM in Europe. However, driven by the demand for "green electricity to green hydrogen", various technologies continue to innovate and begin to converge: from the perspective of structure, the structural design of ALK, PEM and AEM has a certain tendency to learn from each other and drive each other; From the perspective of performance, the market has appeared in the current density, dynamic response comparable to PEM ALK products; From the cost point of view, PEM is also gradually approaching ALK.
Hydrogen Cloud Chain believes that the success or failure of the future technology route competition will mainly depend on two factors: the cost of electrolysis equipment and scenario adaptation.
4. Competition
As a commodity in the future, similar to oil and natural gas, green hydrogen will also have a mismatch between supply and demand and geographical space, and green hydrogen** has broad prospects and is imperative. The development of green hydrogen** needs to meet a series of prerequisites such as production capacity, demand, cost, and infrastructure.
The development of green hydrogen** is of great significance. Hydrogen Cloud Chain believes that the purpose of developing hydrogen energy in various countries includes: first, seizing the export of hydrogen energy commodities and reconstructing the global energy market structure; The second is to ensure the import of hydrogen energy and achieve national energy security.
Green hydrogen** is difficult to implement. Limited by the production cost and transportation cost of green hydrogen, most of the international green hydrogen is in the first stage at this stage. It is expected that when the green hydrogen industry enters a mature stage, the necessary conditions such as cost and infrastructure are basically in place, and large-scale international green hydrogen will appear in the market.
Summary
Hydrogen Cloud Chain View: Since 2022, the global green hydrogen industry has undergone gratifying changes, but it has not yet reached the inflection point of a full-scale outbreak of the industry.
2. Stages, cycles and inflection points of the global green hydrogen market
The development of the global market for green hydrogen has brought new technology cycles, innovation cycles and market cycles to the hydrogen energy industry, as well as new market opportunities.
Hydrogen Cloud Chain believes that enterprises need to understand the green hydrogen industry under the new industrial logicDrivers change and development stage changesand grasp the entry of the industryThe inflection point and time window of explosive growthto understand the different stages of development of the green hydrogen industryChallenges and opportunitiesin order to survive in the fast-growing green hydrogen market.
1. Drivers of the green hydrogen industry
The policy has given the hydrogen energy industry a new starting point, and cost is the core driving factor of the green hydrogen industry. Hydrogen and electrolyzers are both industries with a history of more than 100 years. Due to the low market demand due to the high cost, the development of electrolysis hydrogen production technology has been stagnant for many years.
Hydrogen Cloud Chain believes that the policy has given the hydrogen energy industry a new starting point and new direction, and cost is the key factor that determines the upper limit of the development of the hydrogen energy industry。The proposal of the carbon neutrality goal and the emergence of the energy security needs of various countries have changed the development logic of the hydrogen energy industry and accelerated the industrial development process. However, even if the carbon neutrality goal is stopped, as the cost of electricity falls, green hydrogen will gradually have a cost advantage over gray hydrogen, thus becoming the mainstream of the hydrogen market and extending to other application scenarios.
2. Judgment on the development stage of green hydrogen industry
Green hydrogen has not yet entered the stage of substantial development. By 2023,Relatively mature large-scale electrolysis equipment products have appeared in the global market, and certain demonstration projects have appeared. Hydrogen Cloud Chain believes that due to the high cost of green hydrogen, the business model has not yet been formed, and the standards and regulations have not yet been established, the green hydrogen industry is still in the "pilot" or "demonstration" stage, the overall market scale is limited, and the actual supply and demand relationship has not yet been formed, so the green hydrogen industry has not yet entered the stage of commercialization and substantive development.
3. Two key inflection points for the outbreak of the green hydrogen market. The hydrogen market is a mature market, and hydrogen users, especially chemical users, are generally cost-sensitive, so the key to the large-scale development of green hydrogen lies in the economic advantages of gray hydrogen. Hydrogen Cloud Chain believes that with reference to the experience of electric vehicles, photovoltaic and other industries, when the cost of green hydrogen reaches 2 times and 1 times that of hydrogen produced from fossil fuels, the market has reached two key inflection points for upward development. In the absence of subsidies, this electricity price is only realized in a few scenarios such as direct wind and solar power and valley power in specific areas.
4. The ultimate goal of green hydrogen is to have a lower cost than fossil energy. As the cost of renewable electricity remains in a downward channel, the cost of electricity is expected to be below 01 yuan kWh, at that time, green hydrogen is expected to compete directly with oil, natural gas, etc. in terms of cost.
3. Opportunities and challenges in the global green hydrogen market
1. Three challenges
In view of the formation of the global market for green hydrogen and the goal of Chinese green hydrogen enterprises going global, the industry needs to solve three challenges: technology, cost and internationalization.
Technical challenges. At present, electrolyzers are facing an "impossible triangle" of "cost-power-response": ALK dynamic response ability is insufficient, which is not conducive to matching green power; The cost of PEM is too high and the power is low. At present, the industry has been making efforts in three directions: improving ALK coupling green electricity, PEM cost reduction and AEM industrialization, and some enterprises have achieved outstanding results, such as thyssenkrupp's high-density and high-response ALK products, and domestically produced PEM products.
Cost challenges. Considering that technological breakthroughs in other green hydrogen routes such as photolysis of water are not feasible in time, reducing the cost of green electricity hydrogen production is the only predictable way to reduce costs. At this stage, the main ways to reduce the cost of green electricity hydrogen production include improving the electrolysis performance and efficiency technically, adapting to green hydrogen, reducing costs on a large scale in production, and combining with renewable power stations in projects.
Overseas market challenges. In addition to paying attention to uncontrollable factors such as standards and regulations, and first-class barriers, Chinese enterprises also need to pay attention to the differences between the application scenarios and application conditions of overseas electrolysis equipment and those in China, and need to establish overseas operation teams and develop products in a targeted manner.
2. Two opportunities
Opportunities for the new cycle of the industry. The declining cost of renewable electricity and the establishment of carbon neutrality policies have brought a new industrial cycle to the mature electrolyzer market, and the new market demand has put forward new requirements for enterprise capabilities, which has brought valuable market opportunities for new entrants. China's electrolyzer market has ushered in drastic changes, the market competition pattern of the "old three" for many years has been broken, and the shipment ranking of domestic enterprises has changed year by year after 2021, showing that the market is in a stage of rapid change.
Technological innovation opportunities. The application of hydrogen in different scenarios such as chemical industry, transportation, and energy will bring a series of technical requirements to green hydrogen, and electrolyzers will usher in systematic development opportunities of materials, technology, and processes to meet the requirements of high performance, high intelligence, high flexibility, and high cost performance in different scenarios. The three technical routes of ALK, industrialized AEM, and PEM after cost reduction can all break through the "impossible triangle" of green hydrogen, and the first companies to achieve technological breakthroughs are expected to take the lead in the green hydrogen track.
3. Case: Innovation of ALK enterprises
In the practice of hydrogen energy industry, new technologies and new products have quietly sprouted and have blossomed. The hydrogen cloud chain survey found that the new generation of innovative alkaline electrolyzer products represented by thyssenkrupp and others have taken the lead in breaking through the "green hydrogen impossible triangle" competition, and the electrolysis equipment products of such enterprises have achieved the goal of "ALK cost + PEM performance" through systematic innovationAnd meet the "high power, fast response, low cost".Scenario requirements to make up for the technical shortcomings of ALK's inability to couple green electricity and high PEM**.
Fourth, summary
Conclusion 1
Hydrogen Cloud Chain believes that the global green hydrogen industry has made gratifying progress in policy, market growth, infrastructure, demonstration projects, etc., but due to the lack of substantial breakthroughs in cost, business model, market scale and other links, the global green hydrogen industry has not yet reached the inflection point.
Conclusion 2
The green hydrogen industry is in the stage of rapid development of technology and market, and enterprises cannot only pursue technology leadership, cost leadership or scale leadership, but need to strike a balance between technology, scale and efficiency according to the characteristics of different stages of the industry, so as to grasp the window of opportunity for the rapid development of enterprises.
Editor: Hydrogen Hydrogen My Heart Proofreading: Wind Hydrogen Yang Review: Hydrogen Cloud Little Fairy.
*: Beijing Business Daily, hydrogen cloud chain finishing.
Statement: The content of the article is for reference only, and does not mean that Hydrogen Cloud Chain agrees with its views or confirms its description.