Yihuatong, a leading fuel cell company, disclosed its additional issuance plan on the evening of June 25, which intends to raise no more than 200 million yuan, which will be used in the fuel cell comprehensive test and evaluation center to supplement liquidity. The issuance targets are UBS, BAIC New Kinetic Energy, JPMorgan and MorganStanley. Among them, UBS will subscribe for 360000 shares with a subscription amount of 85 million yuan.

It is worth noting that recently, international capital giants have made frequent moves in the fuel cell field.According to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, Schroders Plc increased its stake in fuel cell leader Weichai Power's H shares at HK $16.1063 per share on June 18, at a cost of HK $49.3819 million, rising to 10.12%. At the end of May, during the 13 billion super refinancing process implemented by Weichai Power, UBS AG, JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley were also listed, of which UBS contributed more than 1.18 billion yuan.

So what happened that caused the international bureau to flock to China's fuel cell industry chain? In terms of market size, according to Fuji Economic Research Company of Japan, the fuel cell market will reach 4.5 trillion yen (260 billion yuan) by 2030, 22.6 times that of 2018. From the perspective of policy support, China and Europe continue to generate hydrogen energy is very strong, Shanghai recently said that it will build 100 billion-level industrial clusters. Subsequently, the landing of hydrogen demonstration urban agglomeration is expected to speed up. Next, can the strength of this wind exceed that of lithium batteries?

International giants rush to hydrogen head

On the evening of June 25, Yihuatong, a leading fuel cell company, suddenly issued an announcement that it planned to raise no more than 200 million yuan by issuing shares to specific objects through a summary procedure, which would be used in the fuel cell comprehensive test and evaluation center and replenish liquidity. The issuance targets are UBS, BAIC New Kinetic Energy, JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley. Among them, UBS will subscribe for 360000 shares with a subscription amount of 85 million yuan.

Yihuatong said that after the completion of this offering, the company's capital strength will be further enhanced, which will help to enhance the company's solvency and further enrich its liquidity. With the smooth implementation of the fund-raising investment project and the effective use of the funds raised, the gradual release of the long-term benefits of the project can bring better investment returns for the company and shareholders.

The incident itself is not surprising, and the amount of the increase is not large enough to attract the attention of the market. However, this increase has aroused everyone's interest because of the identity of the financier. At present, although Yihuatong is a leading fuel cell company, because the industry has not been fully developed, the previous performance is not very good, and even made a loss in the first quarter of this year. In this context, there are giants willing to participate in the fixed growth, which is enough to show the problem. Has the industry reached the tipping point of outbreak?

In fact, Yihuatong is not the only one sought after by overseas giants. Weichai Power, another fuel cell giant, received a huge investment from the three giants at the end of May. In Weichai Power's 13 billion billion fixed increase plan, 1.183 billion yuan was allocated to UBS AG, nearly 460 million yuan to JPMorgan, and nearly 380 million yuan to Morgan Stanley. On June 18, information from the Hong Kong Stock Exchange showed that on that day, Schroders Plc increased its stake in Weichai Power H shares at HK $16.1063 per share, costing HK $49.3819 million, and its shareholding increased to 10.12%.

Weichai Power said on the investor interactive platform on June 23 that the hydrogen fuel cell system solution has the advantages of clean and environmental protection, long mileage and short hydrogenation time, and is one of the important routes for commercial vehicles to become new energy. At present, the company's hydrogen fuel cell system has been successfully applied to heavy trucks, buses, light trucks and other products, and the commercial application and development are being promoted in an orderly manner.

A few years ago, Weichai Power bought 19.9% of Ballard Power Systems, a global hydrogen fuel cell ancestor, to become Ballard's largest shareholder and owns the rights of Ballard's next-generation proton exchange membrane fuel cell stack and module technology products in the Chinese bus, commercial truck and forklift market.

The thrust of the government and enterprises

The application of a new technology is inseparable from the promotion of the government and enterprises. Judging from the current situation, many local governments across the country are in action.

According to the data, according to the planningShanghaiIn the field of hydrogen energy and fuel cell vehicle industry, the goal of "100 stations, 100 billion, tens of thousands of vehicles" is put forward. by 2023, there will be nearly 100 hydrogen refueling stations and 30 will be completed and put into operation, forming an output value of nearly 100 billion yuan and popularizing nearly 10000 hydrogen fuel cell vehicles.

According toBeijing Municipal Development and Reform CommissionIn February this year, the list of key projects in Beijing for 2021 was announced. Projects in the field of hydrogen energy and fuel cells include the R & D and production project of hydrogen fuel cell with constant kinetic energy, the pilot production line project of membrane electrode of National hydrogen Energy Corporation, the capacity building project of BAIC Futian hydrogen fuel commercial vehicle and testing, and the northern area project of Beijing Xingchuang Investment Daxing hydrogen Energy demonstration Zone Project.

Guangzhou HuangpuA few days ago, the 2.0 version of "10 articles on hydrogen Energy" was launched, which extended the support of the whole industry chain of hydrogen energy on the basis of the original policy, and revised the key links such as investment support, rent subsidy, construction and operation subsidy of hydrogen filling station, and so on. These include strictly implementing the hydrogen sales price required by the state, with a hydrogen price below 35 yuan / kg during the demonstration period, a maximum subsidy of 2.5 million yuan per station for the construction of hydrogen stations, and increasing support for investment in key areas of hydrogen energy, with a maximum incentive of 100 million yuan for investment in the same enterprise and a maximum subsidy of 1 million yuan per year for production housing. A 5 billion yuan hydrogen energy industry fund will be set up to promote the tackling of core technologies, and projects supported by the state, provinces and municipalities will be provided with a maximum of 5 million, 3 million and 1 million respectively.

June ninthWebsite of Shenzhen Development and Reform CommissionThe first session of the Seventh Shenzhen Municipal people's Congress approved the outline of Shenzhen's 14th five-year Plan for National Economic and Social Development and long-term goals for the year 2035. The outline points out that by the year 2035, it will become a highland for high-quality development, the comprehensive economic competitiveness of cities will lead the world, and the total economic output and per capita GDP will double on the basis of 2020. At the same time, we will build a future industrial source and focus on the distribution of hydrogen energy and fuel cells.

At the enterprise level, China Petroleum & Chemical Corp has made it clear that he will strive to become the first hydrogen energy company in China and lead the high-quality development of China's hydrogen energy industry. During the 14th five-year Plan period, China Petroleum & Chemical will continue to increase investment in hydrogen energy, speed up the development of new energy business with hydrogen as the core, vigorously promote the rapid development of the whole hydrogen industry chain, and build an integrated energy service provider of "oil, gas, hydrogen and electricity." At present, China Petroleum & Chemical and Longji shares, Great Wall Holdings and other giant companies have launched hydrogen energy cooperation. In addition, Petrochina Company Limited and Sunshine Power supply have all joined the game.

Can the order of magnitude surpass lithium electricity?

2021 is regarded as the first year of the industrialization of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles in the industry. From this point of view, can hydrogen fuel cells surpass lithium batteries in the future? Some securities firms have pointed out in the research report that domestic fuel cells are mainly demonstration projects, lagging behind the development of electric vehicles for 10 to 12 years. The main reason is technology and cost. So is the industry really that bad? Judging from the current situation, we may still have to look at this issue from the perspective of development.

According to the results of a forecast survey on the global fuel cell market released by Fuji Economic Research Company of Japan, the global fuel cell market will reach 4.4724 trillion yen (RMB 6.6, or nearly 260 billion yuan) in 2030, 22.6 times that of 2018.

It is expected that the popularity of fuel cells will accelerate and the market scale will expand greatly after 2025. In particular, the major countries in the world are working out fuel cell propulsion plans after 2025 or 2030, and fuel cells are likely to become the core components to achieve low-carbon goals. In addition, as the expansion of the market size will lead to a rapid decline in fuel cell costs, it is expected to form a market form that does not need to rely on subsidies.

According to hydrogen energy exchange, due to technological breakthroughs, large-scale production capacity and the formation of extensive application scenarios, and the planning goals of major countries in 2025-2030 have been significantly accelerated, the forward-looking conservative estimate of 2021-2026, the global fuel cell industry market maintained an annual growth rate of 20%, by 2026, the global fuel cell industry market size will reach 11 billion US dollars.

From a cost point of view, according to the Guojin Securities Research report, the cost calculation results of a number of vehicle factories have once again proved that fuel cell vehicles are already cost competitive. The subsidy policy focuses on the eight components of technological breakthroughs, including stack, air compressor, hydrogen pump, membrane electrode, bipolar plate, proton membrane, diffusion layer and catalyst. at present, all of them have achieved large commercial applications except domestic proton membrane and diffusion layer. The localization of parts and components has far exceeded expectations.

From the perspective of policy strength, in addition to local governments, there may be another policy to be implemented in the near future. On June 11, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued the notice on release, which is undoubtedly of great significance to the development of fuel cell vehicles. At the same time, seven cities including Shanghai, Suzhou, Nantong, Jiaxing, Zibo, Ordos and Ningdong jointly launched the fuel cell vehicle urban agglomeration cooperation project and issued action initiatives. But that's not the most important piece of information. In September last year, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Science and Technology, the National Development and Reform Commission and the National Energy Administration jointly issued the Circular on the demonstration Application of fuel Cell vehicles, but the list of cities for demonstration applications of fuel cell vehicles has not been released. This list could have a huge impact on the industry. Some analysts believe that the landing time of this list should be fast.