Li Jiajie, member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference: Promote the large-scale application of energy storage and the pilot project of hydrogen blending in natural gas pipelines

Under the guidance of the national "3060" dual carbon goal, my country's energy innovation field has developed rapidly, a new energy system is being rapidly constructed, and green and low-carbon has become the main theme of high-quality energy development. Among them, the large-scale application of energy storage and the development of the hydrogen energy industry have become two directions that have attracted much attention.

During this year's Two Sessions, Li Jiajie, member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, Chairman of Hong Kong Henderson Land Development Group and Chairman of Hong Kong and China Gas Company Limited, submitted two proposals on the development of the energy industry, namely "Vigorously promote the large-scale application of energy storage to support the construction of new power systems and help achieve the country's carbon neutrality goals" and "Proposal on accelerating the promotion of natural gas pipeline hydrogen blending pilot projects and promoting the use of natural gas hydrogen blending". Based on Hong Kong and China Gas's own practice and implementation experience, he made suggestions for the high-quality development of our country's energy industry.

Vigorously promote the large-scale application of energy storage and support the construction of new power systems

Regarding the development of the energy storage industry, Li Jiajie mentioned in his proposal that energy storage, as a high-quality flexible regulation resource for the power grid, can effectively balance the relationship between new energy power and electricity, and effectively solve a series of problems such as the difficulty of connecting new energy to the grid. The state and local governments have intensively issued a series of policies to clarify the goals for the future standardized development of the energy storage industry. At present, the performance of various energy storage technologies has achieved breakthroughs, the industrial chain has been gradually improved, the application scenarios have been continuously expanded, and the business model has gradually taken shape. Especially for user-side energy storage, with the promotion of peak-valley price difference policies in various places and the in-depth implementation of the "dual control" work, some provinces such as Zhejiang, Guangdong, Jiangsu and other places have initially met the economic conditions.

"There is an industry consensus on the significance of energy storage technology development for achieving the dual carbon goals, as well as its extremely high commercial value. However, compared with the speed of development of new energy in my country, the scale of energy storage in my country is obviously insufficient." Li Jiajie believes that this phenomenon is mainly caused by the lack of implementable implementation details for energy storage development policies in various places. Energy storage technology innovation is also relatively single, and large-scale application in all scenarios is insufficient. At the same time, my country's energy storage standard system is not perfect.

To better support the large-scale application of new energy storage, Li Jiajie suggested: At the policy level, the country should increase policy support, clarify the profit distribution and transaction details of the new energy storage market; in terms of standards, the energy storage standards and management system should be improved, and the connection between the energy storage standard system and the energy and power system standards should be promoted; at the pilot application level, the country should create a pilot for energy storage in the whole county (city, district), strengthen the top-level planning of "distributed photovoltaic + energy storage", and at the same time strengthen technical research and pilot demonstration to promote the diversified development of energy storage technology.

Learn from Hong Kong's experience and promote the pilot project of hydrogen blending in natural gas pipeline network

In March 2022, my country released the "Medium- and Long-Term Development Plan for the Hydrogen Energy Industry (2021-2035)", which clearly stated that hydrogen energy is an integral part of the future national energy system. However, the current problems of hydrogen energy storage and transportation are small transportation radius and high cost, which is a bottleneck restricting the development of my country's hydrogen energy industry.

Li Jiajie believes that increasing the "green transformation" of existing gas pipelines will have more obvious and direct value in promoting energy conservation and carbon reduction in society, both in terms of carbon reduction results and economic benefits. Based on Hong Kong and China Gas' 160 years of innovation and service experience in the energy field, Li Jiajie suggested that Hong Kong's mature experience in natural gas hydrogen blending could be introduced to the mainland for pilot promotion in the mainland. This can not only reduce carbon emissions from natural gas, but also be a low-cost and efficient way of hydrogen transmission, which can create more social and economic benefits, and has great significance and value in helping to achieve the "dual carbon" goal.

"In Hong Kong, the proportion of hydrogen in the city gas pipeline network is 49%, and it has been operating safely for nearly 50 years. Calculated based on my country's natural gas consumption, if the hydrogen blending ratio is 10% (volume ratio), it can absorb more than 170 billion kilowatt-hours of green electricity, greatly increasing the penetration rate of renewable energy in my country's energy production structure." Li Jiajie said that we already have relatively complete natural gas pipelines in the mainland. These pipelines can withstand an average hydrogen blending ratio of 10%-20% or less of hydrogen-blended natural gas. Therefore, we can accelerate the promotion of natural gas pipeline hydrogen blending pilot projects in the mainland, and increase the proportion of clean energy use in our country in a low-cost and efficient way.

In his proposal, Li Jiajie suggested that my country should formulate a special plan for hydrogen pipeline transportation, speed up the formulation of national standards and industry standard system for natural gas hydrogen blending, increase subsidies and financial support for the natural gas hydrogen blending industry chain, strengthen "government, industry, academia, research and application" cooperation and talent training, and promote demonstration cities and pilot projects for natural gas pipeline hydrogen blending.