China issues national guidelines to catalyse hydrogen energy industry

China has released its first national-level guidelines for establishing standards for the hydrogen energy industry in an effort to support the sector’s development, as the clean fuel plays an increasingly important role in the country’s carbon-neutral ambitions.

The country is targeting the introduction of a system that includes more than 30 national and industry-level standards covering the production, storage, transport and usage of hydrogen energy by 2025, according to guidelines jointly released on Tuesday by China’s Standardisation Administration, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) and four other key government agencies.

The government hopes the standards will help to realise the full potential of hydrogen energy’s role in China’s energy consumption-side decarbonisation and in China’s new energy system, where renewable energy is expected to play a dominant role, according to the guidelines.

“Standards are a prerequisite for the rapid and orderly development of the [hydrogen] industry,” Yin Zhongshu, an analyst at state-controlled broker Everbright Securities, said in a report on Wednesday.

Incomplete standard formulation, limited application scenarios and hydrogen being strictly managed as a hazardous chemical are the three major problems hydrogen-energy development currently faces in China, according to the report. With the improvement of standardisation, the other two problems are also expected to gradually be resolved, according to Yin.

“[The guidelines have] paved the way for the rapid development of the hydrogen-industry chain in the next few years,” he said. “The development of hydrogen energy in the country is expected to speed up.”