China to reward city clusters for popularizing FCVs, industrializing FCV core tech

Shanghai (Gasgoo)- China is about to provide rewards for city clusters to carry out pilot application of fuel cell vehicles (FCVs) and make efforts in industrializing the core technologies related to FCVs, according to a document jointly issued by five state-level ministries and commissions including the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. 

(Farizon Auto's F12/F10 fuel cell bus, photo source: Geely Commercial Vehicles' Farizon Auto)

During a four-year demonstration period, the city clusters involved in the FCV promotion project will be given rewards based on their final achievements. The reward funds should be used by local governments and enterprises to coordinate the works for industrializing the core technologies of FCVs, introduce talents, manage working team and conduct pilot applications of new vehicles models and new technologies. Nonetheless, the money should not be used to support the investment in FCV production and the construction of hydrogen-refueling infrastructures.

The Ministry of Finance will allocate subsidies for the pilot city clusters popularizing FCVs and developing hydrogen supply system. A credit-based method will be adopted to calculate the subsidies. To be specific, a city cluster will be given 100,000 yuan ($14,790) of subsidy by gaining one credit. Setting up upper limits of 15,000 and 2,000 credits for FCV promotion and hydrogen supply projects respectively, an entity can receive up to 1.5 billion yuan ($221,863,950) and 200 million yuan ($29,581,860) worth of incentives.

Given the lengthy FCV industrial chain and the big amount of participants, the applicants of the pilot project will be mainly from city clusters, which are jointly formed by local governments of several cities where outstanding enterprises sign cooperation contracts or letters of intent.

Within the demonstration period, a city cluster qualified for rewards should have the delivery price of hydrogen stand not higher than 35 yuan ($5) per kilogram, popularize over 1,000 FCVs that meet technical standards, and construct and put at least 15 hydrogen-refueling stations into operation, according to the governmental document.