China leads world on green hydrogen projects, dominates equipment manufacturing, IEA says

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IEA: China accounts for 40 per cent of all new low-emission hydrogen production projects that got the financial green light in the past year

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Eric Ng

Published: 1:01pm, 2 Oct 2024Updated: 1:07pm, 2 Oct 2024

China accounts for 40 per cent of all new low-emission hydrogen production projects that have received the financial green light in the past year and is dominant in the sector’s manufacturing, according to an International Energy Agency (IEA) report.

The nation is expanding its capacity to make electrolysers, which use renewable electricity to split water into hydrogen and oxygen, and that will lower the cost of the device around the world, the IEA said. Electrolysers are critical for producing low-emission hydrogen from renewable or nuclear electricity.

Of the 6.5 gigawatts (GW) of electrolyser capacity that was approved in the past year, China accounted for more than 40 per cent, the intergovernmental organisation said on Wednesday. In the same period, Europe’s capacity quadrupled to more than 2GW with a share of 32 per cent, while India’s reached 1.3GW.

“The country’s expertise in mass manufacturing of clean energy technologies, including electrolysers, means it is home to 60 per cent of global electrolyser manufacturing capacity,” the IEA said. “At 25GW per year, it is well above the average deployment rate globally.”

Several large Chinese manufacturers of solar panels have started making electrolysers and together they account for about a third of China’s manufacturing capacity in the space, the report said.

The total electrolyser capacity that received financial backing amounted to 20GW globally, which could raise the annual global output of low-emission hydrogen by five-fold by 2030, it said.

Last month, a report from industry body the Hydrogen Council and consultancy McKinsey said the global pipeline of low-carbon hydrogen projects that have won financial backing grew to 434 with US$75 billion worth of investment this year from 102 requiring US$10 billion in 2020.