China added 26 hydrogen refueling stations by September this year

China has added 26 hydrogen refueling stations as of September this year and increase the number of stations to 387, according to latest industry survey. This survey also shows that over 70 hydrogen refueling stations are under construction and some of them may be commissioning by the end of 2023.

image: A hydrogen refueling station in Wuhan

Of all the 387 operational hydrogen refueling stations, Guangdong province rank the first with 66 stations, followed by Shandong (37), Jiangsu (31), Zhejiang (29), and Henan (26).

While seemed not bad, this figure is well behind China’s schedule. We collected all the provincial level hydrogen strategy and refueling stations target set by local government, totally, the hydrogen refueling stations deployment target is 1,096 by year of 2025. That mean China will build and put over 600 hydrogen stations during next two year.

The reasons behind the lag might be complicated. Lack of low-cost hydrogen fuel resources might be the top reason. Most of these operational stations are located at developed coastal province which are pretty far away from cheap hydrogen resources, particularly low carbon hydrogen resources which are generally at North or North-West China. The stations owners have to hike the price to maintain their reasonable profitability, or some stations heavily rely on government subsidies, which may make their income unstable and unpredictable.

Good news is solutions is on the way, China is now building over 2,000km hydrogen transportation pipelines, including some medium and long distance pipelines to connect green hydrogen production base and hydrogen consumption hubs. We may expect acceleration of hydrogen infrastructures in coming years in China.