Will the New Policy Wind Propel YiHuaTong to Break Through the Commercialization Dilemma of Hydrogen Energy?

Reporter Chen Yannán from China Business Journal, Beijing

Recently, three departments, including the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (hereinafter referred to as the “MIIT”), issued a notice on carrying out pilot programs for the integrated application of hydrogen energy. The notice proposes that by 2030, hydrogen energy in urban agglomerations will achieve large-scale application across multiple sectors; the average terminal price of hydrogen will fall to below 25 yuan per kilogram; and in some advantaged regions, efforts will be made to bring it down to around 15 yuan per kilogram. It also aims that the national fleet of fuel-cell vehicles will more than double compared with 2025, striving to reach 100,000 units.

Many industry insiders believe this marks China’s hydrogen energy industry moving from demonstration and exploration into a faster stage of large-scale, commercialization-driven development. Against this backdrop, domestic hydrogen fuel-cell leader EVE Energy (亿华通) is once again brought back under the spotlight.

What impact will the implementation of the new policy have on EVE Energy? For EVE Energy, what business opportunities are there? Can the company achieve a breakthrough in commercialization by riding on the tailwind of this policy? In response, a reporter from China Business Journal contacted and sent letters to EVE Energy, but as of the time of publication, no response had been received.

Six Years of Losses Hanging Over It: EVE Energy Trapped in Dual Challenges of Survival and Transformation

From a capital-market high on its first day of listing to being mired in a loss quagmire for 6 consecutive years, this domestic hydrogen energy “A+H” listed company—the first of its kind in China—is facing a survival dilemma as performance continues to deteriorate, funding pressure intensifies, and competition in the industry reaches a boiling point.

The reporter learned that EVE Energy’s related products are mainly used in commercial vehicles such as buses, logistics trucks, and heavy-duty trucks. Customers include commercial vehicle companies such as Yutong Bus and BAIC Foton. The company listed on the STAR Market in 2020 and then entered the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in 2023. EVE Energy built China’s first fuel-cell engine mass-production line, and the fuel-cell systems it developed—from 30 to 300 kilowatts of different power ranges—basically cover all on-road transportation scenarios.

As a pioneer in the domestic field of hydrogen fuel-cell engines, EVE Energy was once a darling of the capital markets, carrying high hopes for technological breakthroughs in China’s hydrogen energy industry. However, the gap between ideals and reality plunged this technology leader into a long winter of losses.

According to the 2025 annual earnings pre-announcement data, EVE Energy’s full-year operating revenue was 26,212.57 million yuan, down 28.51% year over year. The net profit attributable to shareholders was a loss of 62,829.39 million yuan, with the loss widening by 37.65% year over year. The net profit after excluding non-recurring items was a loss of 68,588.04 million yuan, down 26.37% year over year; over the 6 years since listing, the cumulative losses have already exceeded 1.6 billion yuan.

Behind the continuous deterioration in performance is the synchronized shrinkage of the company’s assets and equity. At the end of the reporting period, the company’s total assets were 374,142.89 million yuan, down 21.71% from the beginning of the period. Shareholders’ equity attributable to owners of the parent company was 201,208.66 million yuan, down 21.43% from the beginning of the period.

According to the information in the earnings pre-announcement, the main factors affecting operating performance are that the hydrogen fuel-cell industry is still in the early stage of commercialization. As competition intensifies, product prices face continuing pressure. Due to pressure on capital turnover, the company adopted a prudent approach to expanding the market, which led to a year-over-year decline in sales volume of the fuel-cell systems during the reporting period, affecting overall profitability.

Some industry insiders have analyzed that the hydrogen energy industry is still in the early stage of commercialization. The industry’s common challenges include a relatively small market scale, high costs, and incomplete infrastructure—also the core reasons behind EVE Energy’s losses. On one hand, the cost of fuel-cell systems remains high; although the unit price has dropped significantly, it still has not reached a profitable range acceptable to downstream customers, so the benefits of economies of scale have been hard to realize. On the other hand, competition in the industry is growing increasingly fierce. Foreign enterprises such as Toyota and Hyundai enter the market with low prices backed by technology licensing. Domestic competitors also rise quickly. Combined with the ongoing price war, the decline in product selling prices far exceeds the decline in costs, directly turning EVE Energy’s gross margin negative.

The bumpy road of strategic transformation further exacerbates the company’s predicament. In 2025, EVE Energy planned to acquire 100% of the equity of Xuyang Hydrogen (旭阳氢能) in an effort to integrate hydrogen sources, connect the industrial chain, and reduce costs. However, it announced termination in September of the same year, missing a crucial opportunity for breakthrough. Due to funding pressure, the company had to scale back its business lines, give up some low-margin markets, and focus on the LNG-liquid hydrogen storage and transportation and the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei hydrogen corridor projects, further shrinking its market coverage. At the same time, the loss of key technical personnel and executives also poses challenges to the company’s operational stability.

A Major Policy Push Arrives: The Hydrogen Energy Industry Moves Into a New Stage of Scaled Commercialization

Hydrogen energy has three attributes—energy, a resource, and a storage medium. The hydrogen energy industry has a high level of technological content, strong low-carbon characteristics, and broad room for development. Promoting high-quality development of the hydrogen energy industry will provide important support for the economy’s green transition, the development of new quality productive forces, and achieving the “dual carbon” goals.

During the “14th Five-Year Plan” period, China’s hydrogen energy industry has made encouraging progress and has initially built a relatively complete industrial chain and supply chain. By the end of 2025, the cumulative sales of hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles were nearly 40,000 units. A total of 574 hydrogen refueling stations had been built, with hydrogening capacity exceeding 360 tons per day—ranking first in the world. A batch of industrial projects—including green hydrogen at the ten-thousand-ton level, green ammonia alcohol at the hundred-thousand-ton level, and hydrogen metallurgy at the million-ton level—have been put into operation one after another. In the refining and chemical and coal-chemical industries, some green hydrogen has achieved stable replacement and application, and China’s green hydrogen production capacity is about 250,000 tons.

However, at present, China’s hydrogen energy applications still face issues such as limited scenarios, lack of green hydrogen, high prices, and difficulties in storage, transportation, and refueling. Business models have not yet formed, and market demand still needs to be released. This requires the national government to keep pushing efforts and focus on key support.

During the 2026 National People’s Congress and National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference sessions, hydrogen energy was explicitly listed in the “Government Work Report,” positioned as a new driver of green and low-carbon growth. Soon after, the MIIT, the Ministry of Finance, and the NDRC jointly issued the “Notice on Carrying Out Pilot Programs for the Integrated Application of Hydrogen Energy,” which fully ignited the development engine of the hydrogen energy industry—and also brought a glimmer of hope for EVE Energy, which has been trapped in losses.

This new policy is a milestone document for China’s hydrogen energy industry to move from demonstration and exploration to large-scale, commercialization. With urban agglomerations as the implementation entities, pilot programs will be selected through a “leader by invitation” approach. The central government will provide support in the form of “rewards in lieu of subsidies.” The support cap for a single pilot urban agglomeration over the four-year period can be as high as 1.6 billion yuan, with a total maximum subsidy amount of up to 8 billion yuan. The policy also clearly sets core targets for 2030: the nationwide fleet of fuel-cell vehicles will strive to reach 100,000 units; the average terminal price of hydrogen will be reduced to below 25 yuan per kilogram; and in advantaged regions, efforts will be made to bring it down to around 15 yuan per kilogram.

For EVE Energy, a company that has spent years deeply in the industry, this is both a rare opportunity and a challenge that cannot be missed. Judging from industry development trends, EVE Energy’s core strengths coexist with potential risks. The key to reversing performance lies in whether it can capture policy dividends, accelerate large-scale rollout, and solve the cost challenge.

Some industry insiders say that, for the capital markets, the driving logic for the hydrogen energy sector may shift from concept hype to the company’s ability to obtain orders, control costs, and realize profitability. But investors also need to stay alert: many hydrogen energy companies are still in the investment phase, and realizing profitability still requires time. In addition, uncertainties remain regarding technology routes and the effectiveness of pilot deployment, so sector-level differentiation may become the norm.

At present, EVE Energy is making frequent moves. On March 14, 2026, EVE Energy, Hainai New Energy (海泰新能), and the Hebei Hydrogen Energy Association officially signed a strategic cooperation agreement. The signing coincides with the policy window period when the first batch of hydrogen energy pilot programs were rolled out by the National Energy Administration. With Zhang Cheng Tang hydrogen energy regional pilot construction as the core starting point, the three parties are launching a new practice of industrial coordination with deep integration of “government, industry, academia, research, and application.”

As one of China’s nine regional hydrogen energy pilot programs, the Zhang Cheng Tang hydrogen energy regional pilot carries an important mission to explore cross-regional hydrogen-energy collaboration and development. And the Kangbao–Caofedian hydrogen long-distance transmission pipeline, as the core project of the pilot, is an even more critical link in building the “Zhang Cheng produces hydrogen, and Tangshan applies hydrogen” framework. Under the agreement, Hainai New Energy will rely on this “hydrogen-energy main artery” pipeline with a designed annual hydrogen transmission volume of 1.55 million tons to provide stable and efficient hydrogen transportation and supply services for EVE Energy’s upstream and downstream enterprises, addressing an industry pain point of high hydrogen storage and transportation costs.

值得关注的是，作为全国人大代表、亿华通董事长张国强在两会期间提交的建议，与新政导向高度契合。他提出加大氢能高速示范支持力度、免收燃料电池汽车高速通行费、降低终端氢价、适度超前布局加氢基础设施等务实举措，直指氢能商业化痛点。

“燃料电池汽车产业已完成‘从0到1’的技术攻关，高速物流场景将成为规模化应用的关键突破口。”张国强表示。

目前，氢能产业的商业化浪潮已至，市场也在静待亿华通交出破局答卷，见证中国氢能的崛起之路。

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