报告：绿氢燃机经济性拐点或在2030年，园区热电联产有望率先跑通Report: The economic inflection point for green hydrogen gas turbines may be around 2030, and park-based combined heat and power is expected to be the first to be successfully implemented

Recently, at the sub-forum of the 9th Hongqiao International Economic Forum on 'High-Quality Development of Hydrogen Energy to Promote Global Energy Transition,' Song Hongkun, Deputy Director of the National Energy Administration, provided the latest assessment, indicating that the next five years will be a critical cultivation period for China’s hydrogen energy industry to move from pilot demonstrations to large-scale, market-oriented development. Hydrogen energy will become an important support for achieving incremental development of renewable energy and transformation and upgrading of traditional industries.

On November 6, the report 'Application and Prospects of Green Hydrogen Gas Turbines in China' was released at the 9th China International Import Expo. The report was jointly published by GE Vernova and the Energy Research Institute of Peking University. The report suggests that in the context of rapid development of renewable energy, there are higher demands on the regulation capability of the power system, and green hydrogen gas turbines are one of the feasible solutions to meet this demand, focusing on the path of converting green electricity into hydrogen and generating power through gas turbines when needed.

As of now, China's installed capacity for renewable energy hydrogen production has exceeded 350,000 tons per year. According to the "14th Five-Year Plan for the Construction of a New Energy System," this number is expected to reach 2 million tons by 2030. The report believes that green hydrogen gas turbines, which use hydrogen produced from renewable energy as fuel, together with electrolytic hydrogen production and hydrogen storage facilities, form a "production-storage-generation" chain, and have application potential in three aspects: promoting the consumption of renewable energy, providing long-term regulation, and advancing the low-carbon transformation of existing gas and power infrastructure.

Based only on the 2035 target of 3.6 billion kilowatts of installed wind and solar capacity, the national green hydrogen supply potential could reach 12 to 21 million tons per year. The cost of hydrogen production for relatively favorable projects is expected to decrease to 6 to 8 yuan/kg by 2035; including storage and transportation costs, the hydrogen price at the turbine inlet would be about 7 to 12 yuan/kg. The report predicts that the economic inflection point for green hydrogen gas turbines is expected to occur around 2030.

From the perspective of economic scenarios, large-scale renewable energy bases, load centers and high-demand regions, zero-carbon parks, data centers, and industrial load concentration areas will be the main scenarios. Among them, the hydrogen value for pure hydrogen gas turbine cogeneration in chemical parks is the highest, especially in the eastern regions. The report shows that current hydrogen gas turbine technology is advancing from hydrogen-blended commercial operation to pure hydrogen engineering validation.

Leading international manufacturers' advanced heavy-duty gas turbines have completed 50% hydrogen blending validation, and 100% pure hydrogen low-nitrogen combustion systems are expected to be launched around 2030; domestically, 10% hydrogen blending in heavy-duty gas turbines and 2 MW-class pure hydrogen gas turbines have been commercially operated. Regarding the development path for retrofitting existing gas turbines with hydrogen blending and building new pure hydrogen gas turbines, GE Vernova recommends starting with retrofitting existing gas turbines, as the initial investment is low and the risk is relatively minimal.

[Source: Yicai]

[Editor: Xiao Neng]