(Yicai Global) Oct. 30 -- Hydrogen energy, featuring green environmental credentials and high energy, will play an important future part in China's energy system. Hydrogen energy will widely apply in the country within three years, insiders predict.

All nations are speeding up the development and utilization of hydrogen energy these days, as it holds forth good market prospects.

At the same time, hydrogen energy and hydrogen fuel cells have a great propulsive effect on the regional energy industry's upstream and downstream, including hydrogen production, purification, compression, transportation, electric vehicles, standby power supply, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) and other fields, which will drive huge hydrogen industry cluster development.

China's top economic planner the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) and the National Energy Administration jointly issued the Energy Technology Innovation Action Plan (2016 - 2030) last year. It designates hydrogen energy and fuel cell technology innovation key tasks.

Many provinces and municipalities in the country -- Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Shanghai and Guangdong -- have actively accelerated their positioning in the hydrogen energy industry.

On September 20, the Shanghai Fuel Cell Vehicle Development Plan issued, which identified several goals and urged the coordinated development of the hydrogen energy and fuel cell vehicle industry in the city. Shanghai established its first hydrogen energy infrastructure investment construction and operating platform, and is striving to complete the construction of a hydrogen station corridor around the city in three to five years.

On September 26, the first hydrogen energy equipment industrialization project started in Dongguan, in South China's Guangdong province. After completion, the project will focus on the research and development of new-energy equipment and application products and promote hydrogenation stations, hydrogen fuel cell and hydrogen power equipment and industrialization of its applied products.

From October 27 to 28, China-Germany hydrogen energy industry cooperation and development strategic exchange was held at Guangzhou Development District in Guangzhou's Huangpu district, Guangdong province. Six projects were signed on the spot, involving the whole industrial chain of the hydrogen energy sector.

China's hydrogen energy industry infrastructure development blue book shows that by 2020, China's energy utilization capacity of hydrogen will reach 72 billion cubic meters, with the output value of the industry to reach USD45 million (CNY300 billion). By 2030, hydrogen energy industry will become an important new economic growth point and new energy strategy for China, with the industry output value to exceed CNY1 trillion, the number of hydrogenation stations to reach 1,000 and the number of fuel cell vehicles to hit 2 million.

However, the development of hydrogen energy industry needs government policy support, key technical support of enterprises and involvement of capital. If charging infrastructure is difficult to popularize, and this restricts the development of pure electric vehicles, this will provide an opportunity to develop fuel cell vehicles, Zhang Tong, director of new energy vehicle engineering center of Tongji University, told Yicai Global.