LONGi – China’s First 10,000-ton Green Hydrogen Refinery Project Starts Operation

China’s Sinopec announced that the nation’s first 10,000-ton green hydrogen demonstration project had successfully produced hydrogen, and the output hydrogen was piped to local petroleum refining enterprises to replace the existing natural gas fossil energy as a power source.

So far, the project has successfully realized the whole process from production to utilization of green hydrogen, which also marks first time that China has realized the whole industrial chain integration of 10,000-ton green hydrogen refining project.

The project has the capacity to produce 20,000 metric tons of hydrogen a year, which is also the first 10,000-ton photovoltaic green hydrogen demonstration project in China and provides a replicable and promotable demonstration case for the development of green hydrogen industry and PV based hydrogen production in the world.

As world’s leading large-scale electrolyzer and green hydrogen production solution provider, LONGi Hydrogen won the bid for this project in May 2022. The project adopted 16 sets of LONGi Hydrogen’s 1000Nm³/h electrolyzer, and for the first time realized the application of “4 to 1” system of 4 electrolyzers with 1 gas-liquid separation skid.

The construction of Sinopec’s green hydrogen demonstration project mainly includes photovoltaic power generation, transmission and transformation lines, water electrolysis, hydrogen storage and transmission, public works and auxiliary production facilities, with hydrogen production capacity of 20,000 tons/year, hydrogen storage capacity of 210,000 standard cubic meters and hydrogen transmission capacity of 28,000 standard cubic meters per hour.

Green hydrogen is produced directly from renewable energy such as solar and wind power, and basically no greenhouse gases are produced during the production process. The refining industry will be one of the main application scenarios for green hydrogen to achieve carbon reduction in the industrial sector.

The green hydrogen produced by this project will be supplied to the local petroleum refining enterprises nearby, completely replacing the existing natural gas and fossil energy for hydrogen production, which can reduce carbon dioxide emission by 485,000 tons per year, creating a new development path for green hydrogen refining, a demonstration for the industrial application of green hydrogen, and having a significant demonstration effect on the large-scale use of green hydrogen by refining enterprises to achieve carbon emission reduction, and promoting the transformation and upgrading of energy industry.

As the first typical demonstration project in China that integrates the whole process of green hydrogen production and utilization, such as photovoltaic power generation, green power transmission, green power hydrogen production, hydrogen storage, hydrogen transportation and green hydrogen refining, the project went through hardships such as new process technology, large scale and no mature engineering cases to learn from.

Through joint research and development, Sinopec has solved the problem of flexible hydrogen production and continuous and stable supply to downstream refining enterprises under the scenario of fluctuating power from new energy sources.

Among them, facing the technical difficulties of hydrogen production from renewable fluctuating power sources, Sinopec has developed its own green power hydrogen production configuration optimization software to match the synchronous response of electric control equipment and hydrogen production equipment, which greatly improves the adaptability to fluctuations.

The project has completed 10,000-ton electrolytic water hydrogen production process and engineering set technology, green hydrogen storage and transportation process technology, thyristor rectification technology, intelligent control system research and development and other innovative achievements, all of which have been realized in industrial application, and the project has declared more than 10 patents and proprietary technologies.

LONGi’s hydrogen production system and “Green Power + Green Hydrogen” solution will greatly promote the development of hydrogen equipment and hydrogen energy industry chain, and realization of “Zero Carbon” goal.