Shanghai (ZXZC)- Southeast China's Sichuan province aims to deploy 6,000 fuel cell vehicles (FCVs), including heavy-duty truck, mid-/light-duty logistics vehicles and buses, by the year of 2025, according to a development planning issued by Sichuan Provincial Economic and Information Department on September 21.

(Farizon Auto's F12/F10 fuel cell bus, photo source: Geely Commercial Vehicles)

By 2025, a supporting infrastructure system for hydrogen energy supply will be initially established in Sichuan with a total of 60 hydrogen-refueling stations built then. Under the planning, the pilot application of hydrogen will be expanded to more areas, such as co-generation (involving hydrogen power generation and distributed energy), rail transit and unmanned aerial vehicle, so as to help push ahead with the scale commercial usage of FCVs. Beside, two hydrogen energy storage stations and five hydrogen stations for energy distribution and back-up power facilities will be set up as well.

The planning outlines the phased breakthroughs to be made by 2025 in core technologies of fuel cells and the technologies about hydrogen production, storage, transport and refueling. Besides, the service life of in-car fuel cell stack, the stack power density, the fuel cell system economy and the low-temperature start will be remarkably improved then. 

As part of the five-year plan, a total of 25 domestic leading companies will be fostered to gradually perfect and strengthen Sichuan’s hydrogen industrial chain. Of those, two firms will focus on providing core raw material, seven will be hydrogen producers, six will specialize in transporting and refueling hydrogen and ten will be dedicated to manufacturing fuel cells and FCVs.