SunSirs: Green Petroleum Era Arrives: Over 800 Hydrogen-Ammonia-Methanol Projects Planned Across China, Chasing 9Mt Green Hydrogen Capacity

The person in charge of the National Energy Administration recently revealed at a press conference of the National Energy Administration that "expanding the ways of non-electric utilization of new energy" will be the key direction for the "15th Five-Year Plan" high-quality and stable development of new energy, focusing on promoting the diversified conversion and local utilization of wind and solar power to hydrogen, ammonia and methanol. Accelerate the construction of integrated bases of wind, solar, hydrogen, ammonia and methanol, and encourage the replacement of fossil energy heating and steam in the industrial field with wind and solar green electricity.

The industry widely believes that the integrated model of wind, solar, hydrogen, ammonia and methanol not only converts green electricity into "green oil", opens up key paths in multiple fields such as power, chemical industry, transportation and agriculture, but also constructs a new type of energy industry ecology across industries and multi-energy collaboration, which will provide a systematic solution for solving the consumption of renewable energy, ensuring national energy security and promoting the deep decarbonization of high-energy-consuming industries.

Solving the problem of "eating by the weather" for renewable energy

The core logic of the integrated system of wind, hydrogen, ammonia, and methanol is to convert unstable green electricity into green hydrogen, a flexible energy carrier through water electrolysis, and then further react with nitrogen in the air or captured carbon dioxide to synthesize green liquid ammonia and green methanol, which are easy to store on a large scale and transport over long distances.

Under the framework of hydrogen, methanol and ammonia integration, hydrogen, methanol and ammonia form a complementary "energy golden triangle", each playing a unique role, solving the problem of "eating by the weather" of renewable energy, completely changing the traditional chemical production's dependence on grid stability, and achieving a revolutionary transformation from "grid following production" to "production following wind and solar".

Nowadays, with the rapid development of the hydrogen energy industry, the green hydrogen ammonia methanol industry, with its unique technological advantages and strategic value, is moving from concept to practice, becoming a key link connecting green electricity and terminal applications.

Yu Tong, President of the China Industrial Development Promotion Association, recently stated publicly that according to incomplete statistics, as of October this year, China has planned more than 800 integrated Hydrogen-Ammonia-Methanol projects, with a total planned green hydrogen production capacity of nearly 9 million tons per year, and a built capacity of more than 200,000 tons per year, leading the world.

At present, most of the green hydrogen and ammonia projects in China that have been put into production, under construction, and planned are concentrated in the northwest, north China, and northeast regions, which are rich in "wind and solar" resources. Yang Zheng, deputy director of the New Energy Research Center at the Institute of Petroleum and Chemical Industry Planning, introduced to the reporter of China Energy News: "Among them, Inner Mongolia, Jilin, Xinjiang, Hebei, Ningxia, Gansu, Shanxi, Qinghai and other provinces and regions have successively issued corresponding plans or implementation plans, encouraging the large-scale development of new energy to produce green hydrogen and ammonia."

Most projects are still in the early stages.

During the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, pilot projects for green hydrogen and ammonia in China have been emerging. Journalists from China Energy News have found that typical projects currently in operation include the China Petrochemical Corporation's (Sinopec) green hydrogen demonstration project in Karamay, Xinjiang; the Inner Mongolia Yighao 100,000 tons green methanol project; the Envision Energy Chifeng 320,000 tons zero-carbon hydrogen and ammonia project; the Shanghai Electric Tongnan 50,000 tons green methanol project; and the Jiedian Shares Daan 180,000 tons green hydrogen synthesis ammonia project.

In addition to the above-mentioned integrated land-based hydrogen, ammonia and methanol project, the only existing marine project in China is located in Shandong. The marine wind power provinces such as Guangdong and Jiangsu are rich in green electricity resources, which provide a solid energy foundation for the development of large-scale marine hydrogen production.

Wang Wenfeng, founder and research director of Up Energy, told reporters from China Energy News that the Jiedian Group Dahan project has created four global firsts, covering the world's largest single green ammonia production project, the world's largest scale alkaline and PEM mixed electrolysis hydrogen production project, the world's largest DC microgrid hydrogen production project, and the world's largest solid-state hydrogen storage project, etc. In addition, several highly anticipated projects, such as the Jinfeng Xing'an League wind power coupling 500,000 tons of green methanol project and the China Energy Construction Group SongRMB green hydrogen ammonia methanol integrated project, will also be implemented in the coming year.

It is understood that the current project participants are becoming increasingly diversified, not only including powerful central enterprises such as Sinopec, State Energy Group, State Power Investment, and China Energy Construction, but also giants in the new energy industry such as Goldwind Science and Technology and Envision Energy, which have keenly captured the market's first opportunity, forming a pattern where the "national team" and private enterprises are on par.

Yang Zheng admitted that most of the Hydrogen-Ammonia-Methanol integrated projects are still in the early stages of work and have not yet officially started construction. It is expected that the green Hydrogen-Ammonia-Methanol base with faster construction progress will be in the regions with new energy power and biomass straw resources, and good port transportation conditions, such as Northeast and Mengdong regions.

Short-term scale-up faces multiple challenges

Yu Tong pointed out that the green Hydrogen-Ammonia-Methanol industry still faces challenges such as high production costs, insufficient cross-domain technology coupling and technology verification for large-scale production, and the standard system is still not perfect, and the development of intelligent, green, and integrated is a long-term task.

"The core issue now is how to reduce the investment cost and increase the production rate, so as to reduce the operating cost of the entire Hydrogen-Ammonia-Methanol industry and enhance its competitiveness," an industry insider said.

Yang Zheng also admitted that the current cost of hydrogen production from new energy power and the cost of biomass resource collection and storage are high, resulting in a high production cost of green Hydrogen-Ammonia-Methanol. At the same time, due to the mismatch between domestic supply and demand, the progress of the national cross-regional supply chain is slow, resulting in the transportation of new energy bases in the northwest to the terminal is not economical.

The interviewees generally believe that from the low-carbon development trend of domestic and foreign shipping and aviation, the market potential of green methanol, green ammonia, sustainable aviation fuel, etc., is large, especially the order of green methanol ships before 2030, the huge market demand will promote the rapid development of the hydrogen ammonia methanol industry.

"In the long run, the market prospects for Hydrogen-Ammonia-Methanol are bright, but the development path is tortuous. The huge demand brought by carbon reduction actions corresponds to the lack of effective supply due to high investment and high cost. The green premium of green Hydrogen-Ammonia-Methanol still has uncertainties, which also leads to a small number of actual projects built globally in the short term." Yang Zheng said that the global market of green Hydrogen-Ammonia-Methanol is still in the early stage of development, and once the market is cultivated, the industry will usher in a period of rapid development.

Reporters learned from the National Development and Reform Commission that five power mutual assistance projects, including the Chongqing-Qiannan, Hunan-Guangdong, and Hunan-Qiannan, have been officially approved recently, and China's cross-regional power mutual assistance capacity will be further enhanced.

It is introduced that the total investment of the five projects is 24.4 billion RMB, of which State Grid has invested 18.4 billion RMB and Southern Grid has invested 6 billion RMB. The projects will build five flexible DC converter stations with a capacity of 3 million kilowatts and the line length will reach 1,227 kilometers. It is planned to be put into operation before the summer peak in 2027. After the completion, the total capacity of the inter-provincial bi-directional power transmission will be increased by 15 million kilowatts. It can improve the emergency accident support capability and the flexibility of dispatching and operation, reduce operation risks, and effectively guarantee the power demand of social and economic life and people's livelihood.

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