Sinopec unveils China's first hydrogen storage well

China Petrochemical Corp, or Sinopec Group, has built a new hydrogen refueling station in Southwest China's Chongqing, the company announced on Monday. This move makes hydrogen storage well technology available in China for the first time.

With a daily hydrogen supply capacity of 1,000 kilograms, the hydrogen refueling station, first of its kind in Chongqing, will provide services for Chongqing's first batch of hydrogen demonstration buses and logistics vehicles in the city.

Designed to meet the hydrogen demand of 100 hydrogen fuel cell vehicles per day, the station can also provide other services, including gas refueling and charging.

A hydrogen storage well is a storage facility 150 meters underground, and is safer and more compact compared to regular ones. Sinopec's annual hydrogen production exceeded 3.5 million tons last year, accounting for about 14 percent of China's hydrogen production, the company said.

The company plans to build 1,000 hydrogen refueling stations, 5,000 charging and battery swap stations and 7,000 distributed photovoltaic power generation sites during the 14th Five-Year Plan period. It has already built 21 hydrogen refueling stations in 14 provinces and cities, including Guangdong, Shanghai and Hainan.