Policy optimization of hydrogen energy industry considering government policy preference in China

The hydrogen energy industry in China is in the policy-oriented stage; the market expectation generated by government policy guidance has promoted the development of the industry, and encouraged provincial governments to speed up the setting of various hydrogen-energy-related policies and regulations. In this study, we performed a text-mining and content analysis of 153 hydrogen energy industry policies published by the province government office between 2015 and 2021 with NVivo12 Plus, and compared 2015–2020 and 2021 policy content. The analysis findings showed: 1. The safety supervision and publicity of the hydrogen energy industry are not strong enough; 2. Policies related to hydrogen energy production are incomplete. 3. China's hydrogen energy industry policy focuses more on the application of hydrogen fuel cells (HFCs) and vehicles (HFCVs), but the policies for hydrogen storage and transportation are insufficient. 4. The government attaches importance to the layout of infrastructure construction, especially hydrogen refueling stations (HRSs), but the policies for the expansion of other hydrogen energy applications are simple; 5. Policy subsidy methods are diversified but application-related subsidies are relatively weak. Therefore, we recommend the following policy optimizations: 1. Strengthen the complementarity of hydrogen energy industrial clusters, and improve product quality and popularity; 2. Increase the proportion of hydrogen-production policies, and break through the bottleneck of on-site hydrogen production policies in due course; 3. Optimize the combined selection of storage and transportation methods, and promote the construction of hydrogen refueling combined stations; 4. Promote diversified hydrogen energy application scenarios, and achieve efficient hydrogen energy consumption; 5. Strengthen auxiliary policies for the hydrogen energy industry chain, and reduce the dependence of the hydrogen energy industry on financial subsidies.