氢能“制储输用”全产业链崛起 撬动万亿级规模大市场Rise of the Full Hydrogen Value Chain - Production, Storage, Transport and Utilization - Unlocks a Trillion-Yuan Market

Green Fuel International Business Network has learned that in the opening year of the 15th Five-Year Plan, a number of national energy special plans were released one after another. During the 15th Five-Year Plan period, hydrogen is included in the non-fossil energy supply system for the first time, officially becoming an important part of China's clean energy. Previously, hydrogen was a "supporting player" and "future contender" in the big energy picture; now it has joined the main lineup.

Hydrogen's clean attributes are especially visible in transport scenarios. According to the report, a hydrogen heavy truck being refueled can take on 37 kg of hydrogen at a time and run more than 500 km. Zhang, a hydrogen heavy truck driver, said that with diesel of the same value, a fuel vehicle can run 400 km, while a hydrogen vehicle runs 100 km more, which saves him money and time. Zhang Xiaohu, an employee at a hydrogen refueling station in Zhangjiagang, said the station runs two shifts a day, with about six or seven vehicles per shift and 15 or 16 a day, and more and more logistics vehicles are coming to refuel.

Although hydrogen is clean and has high energy density, it is extremely light and can escape through the smallest gap; storage and transport were once a "roadblock" hindering the development of the hydrogen industry, but this bottleneck is now being broken. The most mainstream 35 MPa hydrogen storage tank on the market has an internal pressure 350 times atmospheric pressure, equivalent to the water pressure at a depth of 3,500 meters, and such a tank can hold 11 kg of hydrogen. Qiu Fang, a technical supervisor, introduced that the company is developing a cryogenic liquid hydrogen cylinder with a total volume of 1,200 liters that can be filled with more than 70 kg of liquid hydrogen, allowing a heavy truck to run more than 1,000 km; this cylinder uses a double-layer insulation structure, and extreme heat or cold has basically no effect on it, so it can be called a "thermos".

Transport facilities are also becoming more complete. At present, China's first inter-provincial, large-scale, long-distance pure hydrogen pipeline, the "West-to-East Hydrogen Transmission" corridor, is under accelerated construction, and the total mileage of completed and planned hydrogen pipelines nationwide has exceeded 13,000 km, with the bottlenecks of hydrogen that once "could not be stored or moved" being broken one by one. In the 15th Five-Year Plan for the Construction of a New-Type Energy System, hydrogen pipelines are included as a national key project of new-type energy infrastructure, the first time hydrogen pipelines have been included as a key project.

The 15th Five-Year Plan for the Construction of a New-Type Energy System issued in June 2026 clearly proposes advancing the development of the hydrogen industry. Behind the change in status is a change in the industry; the recently released China Hydrogen Development Report (2026) sets the tone for hydrogen development during the 15th Five-Year Plan: anchoring a "new stage of scaled development", hydrogen is moving from "policy-driven" to "market-driven". In Zhangjiagang, Jiangsu, contracted investment in the hydrogen industry reached 2.03 billion yuan in the first half of the year, doubling in half a year compared with the whole of 2025.

Application scenarios continue to expand. Qiu Yihao, deputy director of the marketing department of State Grid Zhangjiagang Power Supply Company, introduced that a local hydrogen-photovoltaic complementary smart microgrid is operating stably; the hydrogen power generation system is more stable than photovoltaics and can supplement power on cloudy or bad-weather days, helping the whole microgrid achieve relatively stable balance. In the dining hall of an elderly care institution in Weifang, Shandong, the flame blended with hydrogen is bluer; chef Yan Yonghong said that after using hydrogen-blended gas, the firepower is more stable and the flame more even.

Data show that China produces more than 39 million tonnes of hydrogen a year, ranking first in the world, and renewable energy hydrogen production capacity accounts for more than half of the global total. Zhang Lin, director of the Planning and Development Department of the China Electricity Council, said that China's green hydrogen capacity currently accounts for more than half of the global total, hydrogen is moving from "demonstration application" to "scaled development", and the next 5 years are a critical period for hydrogen to shift to "market-driven"; the rise of the full hydrogen industry chain of "production, storage, transport and use" contains market opportunities for green transformation and a trillion-scale market.

The growth of the industry has also given rise to new occupations. Not long ago, two hydrogen-related names, "water electrolysis hydrogen production worker" and "hydrogen fuel cell manufacturing worker", appeared in the new occupation list published by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security. In Duolun County, Xilingol League, Inner Mongolia, China's first wind-solar hydrogen production project is in operation; Chen Yueqi, who worked in coal chemicals for more than ten years, changed roles to become a water electrolysis hydrogen production worker. Green hydrogen production must follow wind-solar power generation, which is sometimes strong and sometimes weak, placing higher demands on operation and safety. Today, Inner Mongolia's green hydrogen capacity and output account for one third of the national total, ranking first, and 3 higher vocational colleges have opened hydrogen technology application majors, with more than 80% of students connecting with local key industries.