Chinese oil company Sinopec aims to save 485,000 t of CO2 per year with its new hydrogen plant in Kuqa. Using electricity from a large photovoltaic field, the plant will produce 20,000 t of green hydrogen annually for a nearby refinery.
China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation, better known as "Sinopec," has completed construction of China's largest green hydrogen plant to date. At full capacity, it is expected to be able to produce up to 20,000 tons of green hydrogen per year.
The plant is located in the city of Kuqa. It is located in the northwest of the Xinjiang region near the border with Kyrgyzstan. Sinopec intends to supply the hydrogen produced here to the refinery of its subsidiary Sinopec Tahe Petrochemical to replace the natural gas used there. In doing so, the multi-ethnic state-owned corporation aims to enable "low-carbon development of modern oil processing."
First large-scale green H2 plant in China.
According to Sinopec, this is the first large-scale use of photovoltaics to produce hydrogen in China. The spherical hydrogen storage tanks on the site have a storage capacity of 210,000 m³, and hydrogen transport pipelines with a capacity of 28,000 m³ per hour have also been installed, it said.
The project is expected to reduce CO2 emissions from the Sinopec refinery by around 485,000 tons per year. The Group sees the plant as a pilot that could be followed by similar projects.In February 2023, construction began on a plant in Ordos (Inner Mongolia), which is expected to produce 30,000 t annually. Another project in Ulanqab (also Inner Mongolia) is in the planning stage.
In addition, the company is currently designing around 100 hydrogen refueling stations throughout China; the current inventory is already the largest in the world.
