Sinopec is making headway toward its goals of producing green hydrogen by obtaining permissions for two new projects in Inner Mongolia that will start construction within the upcoming 12 months.
The largest of the two projects, valued at 20.5 billion yuan ($2.9 billion), is planned for Ulanqab in central Inner Mongolia and aims to produce 100,000 tons of green hydrogen annually.
For the purpose of supplying the renewable electricity necessary for producing green hydrogen, the Ulanqab project will be connected with a 1.7 GW wind farm and an 804 MW solar farm.
The Sinopec Beijing Yanshan Petrochemical Complex, which already has a hydrogen purification facility that supplied the Beijing Winter Olympics, will receive the green hydrogen produced via a long-distance pipeline. The Ulanqab project is expected to begin construction in December 2023, and it is expected to be finished in June 2027.
The other proposal that Inner Mongolia accepted is a 3-billion-yuan ($430 million) project that will be built in the Ordos city neighborhood of Uxin.
It is the second phase of Sinopec’s Ordos green hydrogen project, the first phase of which has already started construction and is expected to be operational by the end of 2022. Its planned annual hydrogen production capacity is 20,000 tons.
To create green hydrogen, which would be used to replace the coal-based feedstocks currently used by the Zhongtian Hechuang olefins facility in Ordos, a 400 megawatt (MW) wind farm would be constructed as part of the Ordos Phase 2 project. Construction on Ordos Phase 2 is expected to begin in June 2023, with a June 2024 operational launch date as the goal.
