China’s electrolyzer procurement hit 450MW in 1Q2023, surpass 2021 full year figure

According to China’s latest industry survey, the procurement of electrolyzer hit new record in 1Q2023 amid surge of green hydrogen production projects. The total procurement for electrolyzer in the first quarter reached 452MW (only MW scale projects for alkaline and PEM are counted), which exceeded the annual shipments in 2021.

As China has been speeding up deployment of green hydrogen, several colossal projects have been announced since the beginning of 2023. Most of these green hydrogen plants will be located at Inner Mongolia or Jilin province where rich solar and wind power resource could be leveraged to produce green hydrogen.

In 1Q2023, Sungrow Power, Peric Hydrogen and Longi Hydrogen ranked top 3 in term of secured procurement, which got 105MW, 100MW and 75MW order respectively.

China is renowned globally for cost advantages of its electrolyzer products due to low manufacturing cost, however, the procurement in 1Q2023 unveiled an astonishing fact-China’s cost competitiveness may be much sharper than world’s imagination. The unit price of most alkaline electrolyzer fell in the range of 1,350 to 1,500 Rmb/kw ($200 to $220/kw), this figure is 80% lower than their western peers in North American and Europe.

These figures can perfectly explain the green hydrogen and green ammonia rush recently in China. Abundant renewable power resources, plus cheap electrolyzer could reduce the green hydrogen price to around $2.5/kg level, attractive to industrial clients even without governments’ subsidy.