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As the new energy of new energy, along with the energy revolution, the development of China's hydrogen energy industry has accelerated in recent years and the scale of the industry has been increasing.

At this stage, China has become the world's largest market for fuel cell commercial vehicles. However, this train is not without obstacles on its way. Cost is one of them.

In competition with pure electric vehicles, hydrogen fuel does not yet show a price advantage. Although pure electric has shortcomings that still need to be broken through such as lack of range, poor performance in low temperature conditions and long charging times. However, the market is still more receptive to it than to hydrogen fuel.

The reasons for this are, firstly, the overall cost of hydrogen fuel applications and, secondly, the fact that the market is still foggy about the safe and reliable performance of hydrogen fuel. If it is to be used commercially on a large scale, the core key remains cost. And it is a significant reduction in cost from all the different aspects of manufacturing, storage, transport, batteries and hydrogen refuelling.

As the heart of the hydrogen energy industry chain, "cost reduction" for hydrogen fuel cell reactors has also become a buzzword, frequently appearing on everyone's radar and being widely discussed. But the problem is never solved by words, but by "implementation". Where is this pioneer of both courage and strength?

Let's take a look back at 19 May this year.

On that day, Senergy Fuel Cell Technology held a new W1.0 metal plate power stack launch in Shenzhen, announcing that the new W1.0 metal plate power stack would be available for sale at a price of 999 RMB/kW, limited to 500 sets.

Current stack costs are around RMB 1300-1500/kW and system costs are around RMB 3000/kW, while by 2025, with an estimated 50,000 hydrogen vehicles planned by the state, stack costs will drop to RMB 500-600/kW and system costs will be around RMB 1500-2000/kW.

Current fuel cell reactor industry offers are generally in the range of RMB 1300-2000/kW and have never fallen below a thousand. Fuel cell system costs are still high. Such a reverse move by Senergy Fuel Cell Technology has caused a great shock in the industry. The daredevil has emerged.

Why Senergy Fuel Cell Technology? And how does it do it?

Shenzhen Senergy Fuel Cell Technology Co., Ltd. is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Vision Group. As early as 2014, Vision Group started to develop technology and investment in the hydrogen energy industry. In 2017, Vision Group accelerated the layout of the hydrogen energy industry and established a talented R&D team and an operation team with advanced innovative ideas.

It is well known that any price reduction of a product will take some risk upfront and may bring losses due to too much price reduction. The cost of the reactor comes mainly from the catalyst, bipolar plates and proton exchange membranes, and it is very difficult to reduce the price in small quantities upfront. This is the reason why the industry is very vocal but extremely difficult to achieve.

Senergy Fuel Cell Technology believes that: from the user's point of view, pricing according to market demand, thus driving the market scale to further expand, can force the internal and supply chain costs to fall rapidly, the healthy competition in the industry will promote the development of a more robust industry, and most importantly, can create greater value for customers.

The market needs a "cost leader", and Vision Hydrogen is in the right position to do so, with a high degree of confidence in the industry and cost control.

The company will use Senergy Fuel Cell Technology's own moulded plates instead of engraved plates in the mass production process to compress the cost of pole plates to the lowest in China.

Improving the company's own sealing technology to replace the materials used for sealing domestically.

The product end plates are processed by open-moulding instead of machining.

The use of localised parts for all Senergy Fuel Cell Technology products, and the continuous optimisation of flow field design and improvement of membrane electrode performance to increase the volumetric power density of the stack.

significant reduction in graphite electrode plate thickness and preparation costs through carbon paper moulded plate technology.

The reduction of product cost can be achieved by stringing together different products through the ladder utilisation technology.

A series of measures, such as continuous and rapid technological updating, replacement of components by local production and mass production, have helped the reactor to achieve a real "cost reduction". If we join hands with users to reduce operating costs, we can drive the industry chain to break the cost shackles together, thus promoting the rapid development of the hydrogen energy industry.

At this stage, the real competitors of fuel cell companies are not each other, but the more powerful external competition. After internal calculations, the price of fuel cells has dropped to a certain level, so that they can compete with pure trams and even with diesel cars.

Senergy Fuel Cell Technology expects to launch the fifth generation of fuel cell power stacks in 2025, which will cost as low as around 600 RMB/kW. By 2030, further cost reductions will be achieved through better technology and mass production, reducing the cost of reactor materials from 1000 RMB/kW to around 500 RMB/kW. This is Senergy Fuel Cell Technology's action to express its expectation for the future development of the industry chain.

As the "ultimate clean energy", the contribution of hydrogen energy to carbon reduction is undoubtedly underestimated at this stage. In addition to the transportation sector, hydrogen energy can play a great role in the chemical and metallurgical industries that require deep decarbonisation.

In recent years, policies related to the hydrogen energy industry have been introduced intensively across the country. Some provinces and cities have also put forward multi-stage planning schemes, with 2023, 2025, 2030 and beyond as nodes for the construction targets of the near, medium and long term hydrogen energy industry chain.

It can be seen that through the encouragement of government policies, the continuous breakthroughs in technology and the increased participation of the industry, hydrogen fuel cells have ushered in their golden era.