Recently, the Jiangsu Provincial Development and Reform Commission, the Jiangsu Provincial Department of Industry and Information Technology, the Jiangsu Provincial Department of Ecology and Environment, and the Jiangsu Provincial State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission jointly issued the Three-Year Action Plan for Energy Conservation and Carbon Reduction Upgrades in Key Industries of Jiangsu Province (2026–2028), deploying energy conservation and carbon reduction upgrade tasks across key industries such as steel, oil refining and ethylene, and methanol and synthetic ammonia, with multiple provisions clearly identifying hydrogen energy application directions including green hydrogen substitution and hydrogen-rich metallurgy.
Steel industry: orderly promotion of hydrogen-rich metallurgy demonstration applications
The plan proposes promoting energy conservation and carbon reduction upgrades of key processes and equipment such as blast furnaces and converters, applying advanced technologies including large-ratio pellet smelting, furnace top pressure equalisation coal gas recovery, and oxygen-enriched combustion in hot blast stoves, and promoting interface connection technologies between processes such as one-ladle-to-the-end hot metal transfer and hot charging and hot delivery, and orderly carrying out demonstration applications including efficient steel scrap recycling and utilisation, hydrogen-rich metallurgy, steel slag resource utilisation, and coal gas CO₂ capture and resource utilisation. It also promotes industrial intelligent agent optimisation of production schedules and process coordination to achieve energy efficiency improvement and process energy consumption reduction.
At the same time, the plan specifies that top-charged coke ovens with a carbonisation chamber height of less than 6 metres (stamp-charged coke ovens of less than 5.5 metres), pelletising equipment below 1.2 million mt/year, blast furnaces below 1,200 m³, converters below 100 mt, electric arc furnaces below 100 mt (50 mt for alloy steel), and old, inefficient self-owned coal-fired power units should accelerate energy conservation and carbon reduction upgrades, and coke ovens should be equipped with efficient coke dry quenching facilities.
Oil refining and ethylene industry: promoting by-product hydrogen and green hydrogen to replace fossil fuel-based hydrogen production
The plan requires accelerating the upgrading of process equipment such as atmospheric and vacuum distillation units below 10 million mt/year, catalytic cracking units below 1.5 million mt/year, continuous reforming units below 1 million mt/year, hydrocracking units below 1.5 million mt/year, naphtha cracking to ethylene units below 800,000 mt/year, and open-type delayed coking units. It also calls for the application of technologies including vacuum pumping at the top of atmospheric and vacuum distillation units, low coke generation in catalytic cracking units, liquid-phase hydrogenation of aviation kerosene, low-carbon deep processing of heavy and inferior residual oil, high-efficiency catalytic cracking flue gas turbines, and cascade utilisation of high-pressure steam, with coordinated optimisation of heat exchange networks and low-grade heat utilisation.
The plan specifies that it supports integrated refining and chemical enterprises in deepening the integrated optimisation of steam, hydrogen, and fuel gas systems, and promotes by-product hydrogen and green hydrogen to replace fossil fuel-based hydrogen production, providing a hydrogen energy pathway for the green and low-carbon transformation of the refining and chemical industry.
Methanol and synthetic ammonia industry: rational utilisation of by-product hydrogen and green hydrogen for synthetic ammonia production
The plan proposes accelerating the upgrading of equipment and processes such as coal-to-methanol units below 1 million mt/year, fixed-bed intermittent gasification, and copper wash ammonia synthesis feed gas purification. It promotes energy conservation and carbon reduction upgrades of equipment such as coal gasifiers and high-pressure synthesis towers, and promotes technologies including water-cooled wall coal-water slurry gasification, low-pressure ammonia synthesis, high-efficiency catalysts, isothermal shift conversion, and methanol-rich liquid residual pressure power generation. It also promotes the production of methanol, degradable plastics, and dimethyl carbonate (DMC) from carbon dioxide.
In terms of hydrogen energy applications, the plan specifies the rational utilisation of by-product hydrogen and green hydrogen for synthetic ammonia production, the development of biomass gasification for green methanol production according to local conditions, and support for industrialisation trials and applications of low-cost carbon dioxide capture and shift conversion for hydrogen production technology, providing diversified technological pathways for the low-carbon development of the methanol and synthetic ammonia industry.
The issuance of this plan will accelerate the pace of energy conservation and carbon reduction upgrades in key industries in Jiangsu Province. The explicit inclusion of hydrogen energy technologies such as green hydrogen substitution and hydrogen-rich metallurgy provides policy support for the large-scale application of hydrogen energy in the industrial sector, contributing to the green and low-carbon transformation of Jiangsu Province's industrial sector.
