China largest hydrogen project gets a 1.705 billion yuan construction award
China largest hydrogen project moved a step closer to construction when a subsidiary of the state owned China Huadian Group awarded two state contractors a combined 1.705 billion yuan to build it, a wind and solar power plant paired with hydrogen making equipment in Damao Banner, a county in Baotou, in the Inner Mongolia region. Green hydrogen is hydrogen made by splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen using electricity from wind or solar power, a process called electrolysis, rather than from natural gas. The developer, Inner Mongolia Huadian Huayang Hydrogen Energy Technology, was set up only in December 2024, a reminder that this specific company is new even though its parent, China Huadian, is one of the 5 largest state power generators in the country.
Two state contractors split a close contest for the work
The construction work was split into 2 segments and put out to bid. China Huadian Kegong Group won the smaller segment, wind, solar and battery storage construction, with a bid of 500.66 million yuan, beating a runner up bid from Shanxi Installation Group of 513.53 million yuan. China Energy Engineering Group, through its Tianjin arm, won the larger segment, wind, solar and hydrogen production plant construction, with a bid of 1,204.83 million yuan. Reading the tenderee own bid announcement directly, rather than a summary of it, shows something a headline alone would miss. The runner up on that larger segment, a nuclear power engineering unit of China Power Engineering, actually bid lower, 1,179.35 million yuan, and still lost. A 3rd state contractor, China Energy Construction, also bid for the work and lost. The award is a construction and engineering contract, not evidence that either winning company has developed its own hydrogen production technology.
The plant pairs wind and solar power with 85 electrolyzers
The project combines 700 megawatts of wind power and 300 megawatts of solar power, 1 gigawatt in total, stated directly in the project own name. That power feeds a bank of 85 electrolyzers, the machines that split water into hydrogen and oxygen, plus a 100 megawatt battery to store surplus electricity. The plant is meant to produce 47,000 tonnes of hydrogen a year once finished, planned for August 2027, stored in tanks holding 650,000 standard cubic meters.
The segment 2 winning bid is the largest single figure here, not the segment 1 figures, even though segment 1 is listed first.
Show the numbers
| Segment 1 winner | 500.66 |
| Segment 1 runner up | 513.53 |
| Segment 2 winner | 1204.83 |
| Segment 2 runner up | 1179.35 |
Wind capacity is more than twice solar capacity, the larger share of the 1 gigawatt combined total.
Show the numbers
| Wind capacity | 700 |
| Solar capacity | 300 |
| Battery storage | 100 |
The award is one piece of a larger plan
The 1.705 billion yuan construction contract covers only the wind, solar, storage and hydrogen production plant itself, not the whole project. Total investment across the full plan, including a longer term hydrogen pipeline buildout the bid announcements mention but do not detail, comes to about 6.765 billion yuan, a figure reported by source 1. Set against the nationwide total of more than 1.4 million tonnes a year of renewable hydrogen capacity already built or under construction across China, this single project works out to around 3.4% of the country total, a MAOWCE calculation from 2 figures in that same source, a meaningful share for 1 site in an industry otherwise spread across dozens of separate projects nationwide.