Hydrogen cell and hydrogen pipeline, the next focus of the European hydrogen energy

From the point of view of hydrogen production, the European Union aims to produce 20 million tons of green hydrogen annually by 2030, of which 10 million tons are imported and 10 million tons are produced internally, which is expected to bring the cumulative demand for electrolyzers in Europe and imported manufacturers respectively to 90-100GW. According to the green hydrogen plan formulated by the European Union, the European market will become one of the important export places for Chinese electrolyzer manufacturers in the future. From the perspective of the competitive pattern of European electrolyzer manufacturers, the main leaders have surfaced, Norway NEL, Britain ITMPower, Germany Siemens, France Mcphy, Plug Power and other market shares are leading, and the new show ThyssenKrupp (Nucera) has a strong momentum. In the future, the competitive pattern of China's electrolytic cell may approach the European market, and Longi, Sany, Sunshine and other electrolytic cell giants will dominate and rise.

From the perspective of technical route, cost performance is the most important measurement standard. European electrolytic cell manufacturers mainly lay out PEM electrolytic cell routes, among which ITMPower, Plug Power and Siemens are typical representatives. Alkaline technology route, with McPhy and Nucera as expertise; NEL has been deeply engaged in the electrolytic cell industry for a long time, and has a layout for both alkaline and PEM. On the basis of its own alkaline, NEL lays out the hydrogen production route of PEM through acquisition. From the cost point of view, the price of alkaline and PEM electrolyzer in Europe is not much different, and the price of PEM electrolyzer is only 1.5 times that of alkaline electrolyzer; In the future, the development of alkaline and PEM two routes will become more and more similar, alkaline to reduce power consumption to improve the comprehensive cost performance, PEM to improve maturity to reduce equipment costs, and develop together in the scenario where they have their own advantages. For China, the performance of the square alkaline electrolyzer prepared by Nucera is better than that of China, and it may become the technical progress target of domestic alkali tank manufacturers. Europe's PEM development is far more mature than the domestic, Siemens, Cummins and other manufacturers into the Chinese market will bring domestic PEM from 0-1 progress, promote the improvement of PEM core parts supply chain.

From the perspective of storage and transportation, pipeline is the main storage and transportation technology route in Europe, which will bring investment opportunities for materials and equipment such as pipes and compressors. According to the European Hydrogen Backbone Plan published in 2022, Europe will build a hydrogen pipeline covering 28 EU countries, with the total length expected to reach 28,000 km by 2030 and 53,000 km by 2040. 60% are converted from existing natural gas pipelines, and 40% are newly built pure hydrogen pipelines. The total investment is expected to be 8 billion to 14.3 billion euros (64.2 billion to 114.8 billion yuan). Among them, pipes and compressors are the core links of hydrogen pipeline investment and construction, bringing material and equipment opportunities.

From the application side, petroleum refining and ammonia synthesis are the main scenarios for hydrogen energy application in Europe, and the future transportation field and construction field are the links with the greatest growth potential. According to the EU Hydrogen Strategy published by the European Commission in July 2020, the optimistic scenario is that by 2050, the demand for hydrogen is 2250TWh (68.18 million tons); Among them, transportation 675TWh (20.45 million tons) and construction 579TWh (17.54 million tons) will be the largest demand for hydrogen. Compared with the domestic, the main application scenario of hydrogen is the chemical industry, that is, synthetic ammonia, synthetic methanol and petroleum refining, and the future transportation and hydrogen metallurgy may become the main incremental market for hydrogen demand.