During the 2026 National People's Congress sessions, NPC deputy and Sinohytec Chairman Zhang Guoqiang submitted two key proposals. One focuses on launching hydrogen highway demonstration projects to promote large-scale development of fuel cell vehicles, while the other advocates for accelerating the establishment of a unified national carbon trading market to create new economic growth drivers.
China's fuel cell vehicle industry has completed initial technological breakthroughs and supply chain development, establishing an independent technological system for automotive fuel cells and hydrogen storage systems. Localization rates for core components including fuel cell stacks, bipolar plates, air compressors, air circulation systems, and membrane electrodes exceed 90%. Material-level domestic products such as catalysts, carbon paper, and proton exchange membranes have begun small-batch applications. The comprehensive cost of fuel cell systems has decreased from 10,000 yuan/kW in 2021 to approximately 2,000 yuan/kW currently, with pure hydrogen driving range reaching 600 kilometers, making the technology ready for highway operation scenarios.
Zhang Guoqiang emphasized that highways serve as the main artery of modern transportation systems. Hydrogen highway demonstrations represent an effective pathway for promoting energy conservation and carbon reduction in transportation, facilitating the transition from dual energy consumption control to dual carbon control for road transport vehicles. These demonstrations also constitute crucial measures for breaking through industrial development bottlenecks and exploring market-oriented commercial operation models for hydrogen energy and fuel cell vehicles.
Zhang pointed out that current hydrogen highway demonstrations remain limited in scope, primarily confined to provincial or specific regional operations without established cross-regional coordination mechanisms. The demonstration effect and radiation-driven capacity are insufficient to effectively support large-scale development of the fuel cell vehicle industry, limiting their role in accelerating overall industrial upgrading. Accordingly, Zhang proposed four key recommendations for hydrogen highway demonstrations: strengthening top-level design, increasing policy support, appropriately advancing hydrogen infrastructure deployment, and enhancing collaborative mechanisms to build industrial ecosystems.
Additionally, Zhang proposed accelerating the construction of a unified national carbon trading market to foster new economic growth engines. He noted that while China has achieved breakthroughs in green transformation of development models, with green industries becoming important drivers of economic growth, challenges remain as green transformation deepens. Green industries still face relatively high overall costs, while downstream markets demonstrate limited identification capability and weak willingness to pay for green products and services. Without effective external mechanisms to manifest carbon emission costs, sustainable development of green industries will lack endogenous momentum.
Zhang believes that accelerating the establishment of a unified national carbon trading market will clearly establish the principle that "carbon emissions incur costs while carbon reduction generates benefits" through market-based carbon pricing. This approach will strongly promote green and low-carbon transformation of traditional industries, stimulate technological innovation, leverage large-scale green investments, and enhance the "green content" and "gold content" of economic development, thereby fostering new quality productive forces.
Although progress has been made in building the national carbon trading market, gaps remain compared to the strategic goal of creating a national financial asset trading platform integrating instant carbon asset transactions, efficient pricing, and digital circulation. Zhang emphasized that constructing a unified carbon market represents a systematic project requiring breakthrough thinking, bold innovation, and market vitality stimulation to transform it into a new economic growth engine. Efforts should focus on developing the national carbon trading market into a comprehensive platform for immediate carbon asset transactions, efficient pricing, and digital circulation.
Based on existing challenges in national carbon market construction, Zhang put forward seven specific recommendations: improving legal frameworks to clarify carbon asset property attributes; optimizing management systems to establish efficient governance mechanisms; rapidly expanding market coverage to stimulate diverse participant activity; enriching trading products to enhance market liquidity; strengthening voluntary emission reduction markets to expand carbon asset supply; enhancing technical support capabilities to build efficient regulatory systems; and improving supporting measures to solidify market development foundations.