Hydrogen energy is a recognized clean energy and is known as the most promising secondary energy in the 21st century. Hydrogen energy will play an important role in solving energy crises, global warming and environmental pollution, and will also become a strategic choice for my country to optimize its energy consumption structure and ensure the security of its national energy supply. It is predicted that the oil refining industry, new energy vehicles and clean energy power generation will be the largest terminal market for hydrogen energy utilization, among which the use of industrial hydrogen in the global oil refining industry will account for 90% of the total global industrial hydrogen consumption. With the increasingly stringent environmental protection requirements for fuels, refineries will need more industrial hydrogen to produce low-sulfur clean fuels for hydrogenation, which will greatly stimulate the rapid growth of industrial hydrogen demand.
1 New energy is the main body of future energy consumption
Hydrogen energy and electricity are both important secondary energy sources and the main green and clean energy in the future. Hydrogen energy has the characteristics of long-distance transmission, large-scale storage and hydrogen-electricity interchange. Hydrogen energy and electricity are widely used in various fields such as industry, agriculture, electronics, steel, and civil use. They all have the characteristics of peak and valley usage at different times. Hydrogen-electricity interchange is one of the effective means to solve energy peak and valley fluctuations. Hydrogen power generation and water electrolysis are the key to effectively utilizing the advantages of hydrogen-electricity exchange, giving full play to the intelligent interconnection and complementarity of energy, and improving energy utilization efficiency. If there is a short-term surplus of industrial hydrogen during use, it can be converted into electricity through power generation to alleviate the shortage of electricity; and water electrolysis can absorb the temporarily abundant electricity, make up for the shortage of wind power and photovoltaic power fluctuations, and reduce the abandonment rate of wind and photovoltaic power.
2 Hydrogen energy will lead the future new energy consumption transformation
The hydrogen fuel cell vehicle industry will kick off the commercial use of hydrogen energy. At present, hydrogen energy has been applied on a small scale to large logistics vehicles, urban transportation vehicles, family cars, and even trains, bicycles, model airplanes, drones, etc. Hydrogen energy will lead the transformation of new energy vehicles in the transportation field.
The world's energy development is in the third transition period from oil and gas to new energy, and the energy type is developing from high carbon to low carbon and non-carbon. It is predicted that by 2050, the proportion of natural gas in the energy consumption structure will exceed that of oil and coal for the first time, and the world's energy will enter a new era of natural gas, oil, coal and new energy. Hydrogen energy accounts for about 20% of the world's total energy consumption and is expected to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 60×10 8 t per year. The annual output value of the hydrogen industry chain will reach 2.5 trillion US dollars, and the world will enter the era of clean energy.
3 The diversified application of hydrogen energy will promote the rapid development of new energy
3.1 Hydrogen production by water electrolysis will run through the entire process of hydrogen energy development
With the development of the global hydrogen industry, the demand for artificial hydrogen production has shown explosive growth, and hydrogen production technology is changing with each passing day. Although coal gasification hydrogen production will also produce a large amount of CO 2 , it will still be the best way to produce hydrogen on a large scale and at low cost due to its abundant raw materials and low price; blast furnace flue gas, chemical tail gas, etc. can achieve low-cost hydrogen recovery through pressure swing adsorption (PSA) technology; solar hydrogen production technology (photocatalysis, photothermal decomposition) is the ideal hydrogen production technology in the future, but it is limited by conversion efficiency and cost issues, and it is expected to be difficult to achieve scale before 2030.
Among all the artificial hydrogen production methods, water electrolysis can effectively absorb unstable electricity such as wind power and photovoltaic power generation, as well as other surplus valley electricity. Therefore, it will run through the entire process of hydrogen energy development and is one of the main sources of industrial hydrogen for building a "hydrogen energy society". With the continuous development of water electrolysis hydrogen production technology and the gradual reduction of costs, water electrolysis hydrogen production will gradually meet the requirements of commercialization and realize distributed hydrogen production. In the future, it is possible to produce hydrogen in a centralized manner and supply hydrogen in a regional manner, or to build a small water electrolysis hydrogen production device at a single gas station to realize the intelligent interconnection of hydrogen energy.
3.2 Liquid hydrogen is the main form of hydrogen storage in the future
At present, industrial hydrogen is mainly stored in a high-pressure gaseous state. Due to cost constraints, liquid storage is less used and is mainly used in the aerospace field. However, as the technology continues to mature, it is expected that liquid hydrogen storage will become the main storage form of industrial hydrogen in 2050.
3.3 Multi-energy complementarity and multi-energy synergy
Using hydrogen energy as a link, hydrogen production through distributed new energy such as wind energy, solar energy, and tidal energy can reduce the cost of hydrogen production and realize multi-energy complementarity and multi-energy synergy between hydrogen energy and new energy. Hydrogen energy can be used as a secondary energy source and as an energy storage technology, connecting a variety of new energy sources. The coordinated development of hydrogen energy and new energy, on the one hand, gets rid of the reliance on traditional fossil resources to produce hydrogen, forming a cleaner and more environmentally friendly new way of producing hydrogen; on the other hand, it integrates various types of new energy and improves the utilization rate of the energy system.
With the continuous advancement of hydrogen industrial technology and the continuous development of the hydrogen energy economy, the coordinated use of new energy and traditional energy in accordance with local conditions, through the mutual supplementation of multiple energy sources and energy intelligent microgrids, will achieve multi-energy intelligent coordinated supply, give full play to the combined advantages of new energy, natural gas, oil, coal and other energy sources, and the blueprint for the construction of a "hydrogen energy society" will be clearer.
