China’s hydrogen industry is moving from pilot projects to scale, according to a Chinese state news agency report of 16 October 2026, but the largest green hydrogen figure in that account is small against the national total. The Baotou pilot that produces 7,800 tonnes of green hydrogen a year is 0.02 percent of the more than 39 million tonnes of hydrogen China produced in 2025, and the 12,694 tonnes that all of Inner Mongolia produced last year is 0.03 percent.
Nine regions, 41 projects, one 195 km pipeline
The policy frame is real. China’s National Energy Administration issued the first batch of energy sector hydrogen pilots in late 2025: 41 project pilots and 9 regional pilots, with Baotou in Inner Mongolia one of the regional pilots. About 20 leading companies have set up in Baotou, which is building a hydrogen value chain from green hydrogen production through storage and transport to use. A 195 km hydrogen pipeline from the Bayan Obo mining area to the city is under construction, and it is among the 41 pilot projects. No completion date for it has been given.
On the demand side, hydrogen heavy trucks run in the mining area, hydrogen buses serve city routes, and in May the first 1,000 hydrogen powered two wheelers with solid state hydrogen storage were deployed. The report also lists national deployment in 2025: about 8,000 fuel cell vehicles, more than 10 hydrogen fuelled ships and more than 30 hydrogen powered drones.
7,800 t against 39 Mt
| Figure | What it is | Share of 39 Mt |
|---|---|---|
| 7,800 t a year | Green hydrogen from a 200,000 kW renewable based pilot run by a CHD subsidiary in Baotou | 0.02 percent |
| 12,694 t | Inner Mongolia green hydrogen output last year, up 3.6 times on the year before | 0.03 percent |
| 80,000 t a year | Capacity of 8 completed Inner Mongolia green hydrogen projects | 0.2 percent |
| 135,000 t a year | Hydrogen production capacity of Lüliang, Shanxi | 0.35 percent |
The comparison has limits. The 39 million tonnes counts hydrogen from all sources, and the report does not say how much of it is green. It does show how much scaling is still to come: even the combined capacity of the eight Inner Mongolia projects is about a fifth of one percent of national output.
Reading the Baotou project
The report calls the CHD project a 200,000 kW renewable based hydrogen pilot and does not say whether that is the electrolyser size or the wind and solar capacity feeding it. If it is the electrolyser, 7,800 tonnes a year works out at 39 tonnes per MW. At an assumed system consumption of 52 kWh per kilogram, a figure that is not in the report, the project would use about 406 GWh of electricity against 1,752 GWh available at full load, a load factor of about 23 percent. That is a plausible level for a plant that runs only on wind and solar, and it shows why the output per MW is modest.
Capacity is not output
The report says Inner Mongolia’s output rose 3.6 times. If that means output was 3.6 times the year before, the earlier figure was about 3,500 tonnes, and if it means an increase of 3.6 times, about 2,800 tonnes. Either way it is real growth from a small base. Setting 12,694 tonnes against the 80,000 tonnes of capacity would suggest about 16 percent utilisation, but the two numbers are not from the same date: the output is last year’s and the capacity is the completed total today, so the ratio overstates any shortfall.
Stations that may not add up
Lüliang is presented as a full value chain, with 135,000 tonnes of annual capacity, 14 hydrogen stations able to supply more than 30 tonnes a day and 1,315 fuel cell vehicles. If each station can supply 30 tonnes a day, the 14 stations could dispense 420 tonnes a day, more than the city’s average production of about 370 tonnes a day (135,000 divided by 365). The figure more likely refers to the combined supply of the network, but the report does not say. At 1,315 vehicles for 14 stations, each station serves about 94 vehicles.
Pilots against delivery
An official of the China Electricity Council is quoted as saying China holds more than half of the world’s green hydrogen capacity and that the industry has moved from demonstration to scale. An industry research report published in August 2025 painted a more cautious picture of the starting point: only 10.8 percent of announced green hydrogen projects were operating as of June 2025, and nearly 20 green hydrogen and green ammonia or methanol projects had been suspended in Inner Mongolia, Jilin and other provinces for lack of progress within a year. That report is not independently checked here, but it explains why delivered volumes matter more than announced ones.
The dated facts are the pilot list of late 2025, the 2025 production figure and the 195 km pipeline, which has no completion date. For hydrogen deployment in transport elsewhere, see PowerCell’s fuel cell order for four hydrogen bulk carriers and Toyota’s new Sora fuel cell bus. Sources: Chinese state news agency report of 16 October 2026 on the hydrogen industry; National Energy Administration pilot notices of October 2025; an industry research report of August 2025.
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