Influence of Water Resources on the Development of Green Hydrogen Industry in China

Introduction

Driven by hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, some Chinese experts and scholars also actively support the development of hydrogen as an energy source in China from the perspectives of no carbon emission during hydrogen application, high energy density per mass of hydrogen, and high efficiency of hydrogen fuel cell power generation. Meanwhile, under the background of global warming, the United States, Germany, Japan, South Korea and the European Union have put forward the goal of developing clean energy such as hydrogen energy and carbon neutrality, and China has also put forward the goal of “carbon peaking and carbon neutrality” in 2020, so the development of hydrogen energy has entered the explosion stage. As the hydrogen energy industry chain becomes more and more perfect, the industrial layout from the application side of fuel cell vehicles to the hydrogen production side has started to shift, and only the low-carbon source can ensure the low-carbon property of hydrogen for downstream application has become the consensus of the hydrogen energy industry. Hydrogen production by electrolysis of water from renewable energy sources is commonly referred to as green hydrogen in China. Green hydrogen is produced by purifying water resources and passing them through an electrolyzer, where they are decomposed and formed into hydrogen and oxygen by the action of a catalyst and electric current; the hydrogen is then further purified to form high purity green hydrogen.

Since hydrogen as a raw material is maturely applied in industry, the replacement of hydrogen made from traditional fossil energy with low carbon and clean hydrogen can realize the corresponding low carbon of the whole life cycle of the industry. Especially since the second half of 2021, hydrogen energy is no longer limited to automotive applications, and related research has started to shift to industrial energy and feedstock substitution, which has increased the importance of renewable energy electrolysis in society and industry.

However, when the main source of hydrogen is made from renewable energy sources, the demand and supply markets for both industrial and automotive hydrogen in China are separated, and the areas rich in renewable energy are concentrated in the “Three Norths” (Northeast, North and Northwest China) and Southwest China, where the economic conditions are relatively poor and the geographical location is relatively remote. The demand for hydrogen is concentrated in the eastern and southern coastal areas, which increases the transportation cost of green hydrogen and thus the cost of using green hydrogen [1].

The proposal of hydrogen production from renewable energy is an adjustment of energy structure based on the characteristics of hydrogen storage, which alleviates the instability of renewable energy generation at the present stage through hydrogen production, and realizes the full consumption and high quality output of electricity by storing the excess electricity from renewable energy or storing the low quality electricity in the form of hydrogen. In terms of power consumption, the installed scale of renewable energy in China has increased rapidly in recent years, and it is difficult for the existing grid channels and grid systems to achieve a high proportion of green power transmission and consumption, and the speed of new power grids lags significantly, and the contradiction between the speed of installation and the speed of consumption is becoming more and more prominent, although the average level of renewable energy consumption is high, the level of consumption in local areas is still low, and with the rapid expansion of the installed scale, the proportion of consumption With the rapid expansion of installed capacity, the proportion of power abandonment is also further expanded.

Problems of Green Hydrogen Industry

While the rapid development of renewable energy hydrogen production in China, some problems brought by climate change have also affected the production life in China, especially in the summer of 2022, when high temperature caused 66 rivers to break and 25 reservoirs to dry up in Chongqing, China [2], Severe weather has changed the perception of abundant water resources in southwest China. Water scarcity or changes in water distribution under extreme weather remind humans that they should be cautious with water and speed up the solution of climate problems.

Development Trend of Green Hydrogen in China

The development of green hydrogen will be accompanied by the orderly reduction of production of traditional chemical industry and the market launch. Under the condition of water resources, the new industry and the existing industry are in a zero-sum game, and they are in a state of extinction. Only after the traditional chemical industry gradually withdraws from the market under the pressure of carbon emission reduction and vacates the water resources quota, the green hydrogen industry will have the opportunity to realize large- scale. Therefore, the development of the hydrogen industry in the “three northern” regions of China will be a gradual development accompanied by carbon emission reduction to the industry pushing back the development, and the large-scale development of the green hydrogen industry in a short period of time will certainly have the problem of uncoordinated development of the industry due to the policy and natural condition constraints and water supply restrictions.

Green hydrogen does not have the same production and use conditions in all regions of China. Although green hydrogen is expected to reduce carbon emissions globally and has many application scenarios, China has a relatively diverse topography with many ecological reserves, with the sea in the east, the desert in the west, and the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau in the southwest, and the whole China is rich in water resources in the south and scarce in the north in terms of the abundance of renewable energy. As a strict environmental protection country, China has strict environmental protection requirements, especially the Yellow River Basin, the main river in the north, is specially protected by special national policies and laws, and there are more strict restrictions on water use in these areas. In addition, the impact of extreme weather on the south of China has also warned about the exploitation of water resources, and the south is also subject to the crisis of less rain and drought or even the drying up of rivers. So when water resources are used, especially for industrial production activities like hydrogen production, which consumes more water, the water resources situation in each region needs to be fully coordinated.

Sea water will be an important resource for green hydrogen production. Offshore wind power and offshore photovoltaic industry are developing in China, and seawater is an inexhaustible water resource with huge space for development, and the combination of offshore wind power and offshore photovoltaic can make good use of the advantages of marine resources. Relying on offshore power generation platform to carry out hydrogen production after purification of seawater or in-situ hydrogen production from seawater will be the direction of hydrogen production with great resource advantages, and it is also important for developing deep-sea resources [8].