氢能产业从政策驱动转向市场化攻坚——专访华北电力大学氢能技术创新中心主任刘建国Hydrogen Industry Shifts from Policy-Driven to a Market-Driven Push: Interview with Liu Jianguo, Director of NCEPU's Hydrogen Technology Innovation Center

According to Green Fuel International Business Network, Liu Jianguo, director of the Hydrogen Energy Technology Innovation Center at North China Electric Power University, said in an exclusive interview that with the implementation in 2026 of the Notice on Comprehensive Hydrogen Energy Application Pilots issued by three departments, the hydrogen energy industry is shifting from policy-driven to a period of market-oriented breakthrough, and explicitly set the goal of lowering the average terminal hydrogen price to below 25 yuan/kg by 2030.

Liu Jianguo pointed out that hydrogen energy is currently still in a "point-by-point verification period," and that for the industry to truly mature, two accounts must be clearly worked out — the economic account and the institutional account. In his view, the development of hydrogen energy in past years largely depended on policy incentives from demonstration city clusters; now that the marginal policy dividend is weakening, enterprises must confront the real constraints of cost, infrastructure and business models, shifting from "getting subsidies" to "finding demand."

On the front of technological progress, Liu Jianguo cited the green hydrogen project in Kuqa, Xinjiang, to illustrate cost-reduction results: the project lowered the energy consumption of electrolyzers from 4.5 kWh per cubic meter to 4.2 kWh per cubic meter, and the decline in electricity consumption per unit of hydrogen production directly drove down green hydrogen costs. He stressed that improved electrolyzer efficiency, falling renewable energy electricity prices and scaled application are the three pillars for green hydrogen to reach price parity.

Regarding application scenarios, Liu Jianguo suggested focusing on priority breakthroughs in fields that are difficult to electrify, such as long-haul heavy trucks and the steel and chemical industries. Long-haul heavy trucks have long transport distances and high loads, giving hydrogen fuel cells an advantage in energy density over battery-electric solutions; the steel and chemical industries have high process emissions, and coupling with green hydrogen can significantly reduce carbon intensity, making them the most prominent landing point for the value of hydrogen energy.

In terms of institutions and mechanisms, Liu Jianguo called for improving the carbon pricing mechanism so that the positive environmental externalities of low-carbon hydrogen are reasonably rewarded; at the same time, the public infrastructure attribute of hydrogen pipeline networks and hydrogen refueling stations should be clarified, to break the bottleneck of "difficult station construction and isolated pipeline networks" and reduce the transmission and distribution cost of terminal hydrogen.

Liu Jianguo believes that the market-oriented breakthrough period means the industry will shift from "barbaric growth" to "intensive cultivation," and that enterprises need to make business models work in real demand scenarios. With the advancement of the Notice on Comprehensive Hydrogen Energy Application Pilots, the hydrogen energy industry is expected to achieve an average terminal hydrogen price below 25 yuan/kg before 2030 and truly gain the ability to compete with traditional energy on an equal footing.