To implement the national decisions and deployments on developing hydrogen energy industry and fully exert the regulating and leading role of standards, Standardization Administration of China (SAC), together with National Development and Reform Commission, Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, Ministry of Ecology and Environment, Ministry of Emergency Management, and National Energy Administration, released the Guidelines for Establishing the Standards System on Hydrogen Energy Industry (2023), which is the first of its kind at the national level, covering the whole industrial chain of hydrogen energy.

Hydrogen energy is a kind of widely used green and low-carbon secondary energy with abundant source, which is of great significance in establishing a clean, low-carbon, safe and efficient energy system and achieving the goals of carbon peak and carbon neutrality.

The guidelines have systematically established the standards system on the full industrial chain of hydrogen energy including production, storage, transport and use, which covers five subsystems for fundamentals and safety, hydrogen preparation, hydrogen storage and transport, hydrogen filling as well as hydrogen energy application. The subsystems have been further divided into 20 second-level subsystems and 69 third-level subsystems according to technology, equipment, system, safety and inspection.

The document has put forward the priorities of standards development and revision to lay a solid basis for hydrogen energy supply and application, promote the green and low-carbon hydrogen source, facilitate the safe and efficient hydrogen storage and filling, and introduce new technologies, techniques and methods.

It has also defined the main tasks for hydrogen standardization at national and international levels in recent three years, deployed the actions on core standards development and international standardization promotion, and proposed measures for organization and implementation work.