Hydrogen will account for 10 percent of China’s total energy mix by 2050, according to the World Platinum Investment Council (WPIC). In a newsletter, the council said that renewable energy investments in China will increase in the coming years. China is already targeting to reach about 15 percent of renewable hydrogen energy generation by 2030.
The council said, “China is not alone in seeing growing momentum behind hydrogen technologies. The global platinum demand impact of announced green hydrogen policies is clearly sizeable over the longer term; current European Union and China green hydrogen generation capacity targets alone would require, cumulatively, between 300 000 oz and 600 000 oz of platinum by 2030.”
According to a white paper called ‘Energy in China’s New Era’ which was published last year, preliminary figures show that in 2019, coal consumption accounted for 57.7 percent of China’s total energy consumption, which is a decrease of 10.8 percent from 2012. On the other hand, the consumption of clean energy which includes natural gas, hydropower, nuclear power and wind power, accounted for 23.4 percent of total energy consumption, an increase of 8.9 percent since 2012.
According to a report compiled by the National Energy Administration China’s natural gas consumption was expected to reach 320 billion cubic metres in 2020. China’s natural gas consumption was expected to increase by 13 billion cubic metres last year. This is mainly due to the country’s efforts to ramp up its exploration and development activities when it comes to natural gas. The report also revealed that in 2019, China’s natural gas imports increased by 6.9 percent to 135.2 billion cubic metres. However, imports were down in 2020 compared to the previous year.