High Quality Development Research Tour | Beijing Daxing International Hydrogen Energy Demonstration Zone Building an Industrial Innovation Ecosphere

CCTV News: Upstairs office drawing, downstairs testing and production, sitting in an elevator up and down, you can reach the upstream and downstream of the industry. Such a scene is becoming a reality in the Beijing Daxing International Hydrogen Energy Demonstration Zone.

The Daxing International Hydrogen Energy Demonstration Zone is located in the central southern part of Beijing, adjacent to Daxing International Airport. How does it build an innovation ecosystem for the hydrogen energy industry? Take a look at the journalist's research.

At the Daxing International Hydrogen Demonstration Zone in Beijing, Mr. Wang's hydrogen powered bus is refueling with hydrogen gas. The Haiper hydrogen refueling station located in the southwest corner of the demonstration area covers an area of over 7000 square meters. The daily hydrogen refueling capacity can reach 4.8 tons, which can simultaneously meet the hydrogen demand of 500 to 600 vehicles. An 18 ton logistics vehicle can achieve a range of approximately 400 kilometers by refueling over 20 kilograms of hydrogen gas at once.

Before 2019, the demonstration zone was still an old factory building for producing automotive parts, with low-end manufacturing and outdated production capacity. After more than three years of development through transformation and upgrading, more than 170 enterprises have entered the park, covering the entire hydrogen energy industry chain of hydrogen production, hydrogen storage, hydrogen transportation, and hydrogenation applications. Most of the settled enterprises have already established a certain industry position in different tracks of the hydrogen energy industry. Daxing District optimizes industrial policies in a timely manner based on industrial development, providing strong support to enterprises in technology research, production and manufacturing, directly reducing rent, providing investment subsidies for research and development of production equipment, encouraging enterprise technological research and innovation, and providing clear support in all aspects of each link. At the same time, real money has also been invested in corporate financing, vehicle procurement, and operational subsidies.

Building a Green Energy Community

In 2020, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Science and Technology, the National Development and Reform Commission, and the National Energy Administration jointly issued a document to launch the demonstration and application of fuel cell vehicles. Five urban clusters including Beijing Tianjin Hebei, Shanghai, Guangdong, Henan, and Hebei have been approved. The Beijing Tianjin Hebei Fuel Cell Vehicle Demonstration City Cluster is led by Daxing District of Beijing, and is composed of 6 districts including Haidian and Changping, as well as 12 cities including Tianjin, Hebei, and Shandong. The demonstration area is 3 kilometers away from Tiangongyuan Station on Beijing Metro Line 4, adjacent to transportation hubs and logistics centers such as Daxing Airport Expressway and Jingkai Expressway, providing more scenarios for the widespread application of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles.

Breaking through technological difficulties and achieving localization of core technologies for enterprises

China proposes to promote the application of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, and achieving the localization of core key technologies of fuel cells is an important step.

Components such as fuel cell stacks, air compressors, proton exchange membranes, and catalysts are the most crucial and major cost components in fuel cell systems. How to achieve localization? The enterprises in the Daxing International Hydrogen Energy Demonstration Zone are actively exploring.

Proton exchange membranes are known as the "heart" of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles and are the core components. Previously, they relied on imports and were monopolized by foreign companies.

In order to hold the "bowl of food" in one's own hands, the relevant departments of the country provide strong support in policy and funding. In recent years, a group of young teams have developed proton exchange membranes suitable for various hydrogen energy equipment and specifications.

Upstream and downstream enterprises overcome difficulties and hydrogen energy development takes a fast lane

In the entire hydrogen energy industry chain, hydrogen production, transportation, and refueling are key elements in the upstream of the industry; The midstream of industries such as fuel cell system manufacturing; Downstream mainly corresponds to the field of fuel cell transportation, building energy storage, and cogeneration.

When conducting research in the Daxing International Hydrogen Energy Demonstration Zone, the reporter found that various upstream and downstream enterprises are working together to overcome difficulties and promote the application of multi field demonstration scenarios. Beijing is also driven by technological innovation to build a first-class international hydrogen energy city.

Chai Maorong, Chief Scientist of State Power Investment Corporation and Chief Technology Officer of National Hydrogen Technology, has been researching hydrogen energy in Japan for more than 30 years. In 2017, he returned to China to start his own business. Among them, the catalyst, one of the "eight key components" of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, was broken through by Chai Maorong's team and landed production in Panggezhuang, Daxing, which is rich in watermelons.

Yihuatong is one of the earliest private enterprises in China to develop hydrogen fuel cell engines. Their hydrogen fuel cell engines can not only meet the operational needs of buses, but also meet the fast and safe driving of heavy trucks on highways.

Yihuatong Company has taken the lead in achieving 100% localization of fuel cell components in China, and has also witnessed an important transformation of China's fuel cell industry from technology research and development to demonstration operation and industrialization.

Since the launch of the construction of the Beijing Tianjin Hebei Fuel Cell Vehicle Demonstration City Cluster, more than 1800 hydrogen fuel cell vehicles have been put into use in Beijing, and multi field demonstration application scenarios are accelerating.