(Yicai Global) Sept. 29 -- Shanghai has launched a new industrial park in the Lingang New Area of the city’s free trade zone that will champion hydrogen power.

The first phase of the International Hydrogen Energy Valley will occupy a 1.55 square kilometer area and will be overseen by Lingang Group, Yicai Global learned at a conference held in Lingang yesterday.

The park has already attracted more than 20 hydrogen power-related businesses, including US engine developer Cummins and Chinese fuel cell startup H-Rise New Energy Technology.

Hydrogen is an important part of China’s energy strategy. The clean fuel is expected to account for 20 percent of the country’s energy consumption by 2060, in view of the nation’s stated carbon goals, Lin Zhongqin, president of Shanghai Jiaotong University, said at the conference.

The entire country is thinking about ways to become greener as China targets peak carbon emissions by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2060.

This year will see 102 buses and 12 minibuses in the Lingang New Area make way for hydrogen-powered replacements, in a first step toward the entire public transport network running on hydrogen in the next three to five years, Li Xiangcong, deputy director of the high-tech industry and innovation division of the area’s administrative committee, told Yicai Global.

Lingang has 40,000 container lorries, 2,000 dirt trucks, and hundreds of shuttle buses, Li said. That shows the great potential for hydrogen, he added.

Lingang’s hydrogen fuel cell vehicle industry is expected to be worth more than CNY20 billion (USD2.8 billion) by 2025, according to a plan released last November.

Twenty-one hydrogen power-related projects worth about CNY8.5 billion (USD1.2 billion) were inked at yesterday’s conference. Among them was a CNY2 billion research institute of state-owned energy titan PetroChina that will mainly focus on developing new materials used in hydrogen storage equipment.

Editors: Dou Shicong, Futura Costaglione