【Shanghai Industrial Elite in the New Era】"From 0 to 10" to achieve 140 million kilometers of hydrogen energy zero-carbon travel

        The report of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China pointed out that the quality of independent training of talents should be improved in an all-round way, and efforts should be made to create top-notch innovative talents and gather talents from all over the world to use them. In recent years, the Shanghai Municipal Commission of Economy and Information Technology of the Communist Party of China and the Shanghai Municipal Commission of Economy and Information Technology have implemented a special project for the cultivation of high-level talents of industrial elites in Shanghai, and selected a group of industrial elites with remarkable innovation achievements, good team growth and high market recognition every year, and strive to create a good situation in which talents lead the high-quality development of the industry and accelerate the gathering of talents driven by the industry.
        In 2023, the Municipal Commission of Economy and Informatization and Wen Wei Po will jointly launch a series of reports on "Shanghai Industrial Elites in the New Era", focusing on the elite talents in Shanghai's industrial innovation and practice, from entrepreneurs and technical leaders who shoulder the strategic mission of innovation, to outstanding engineers and industrial craftsmen who are good at solving complex engineering problems. It is hoped that through the series of reports, more innovation and entrepreneurship talents can be known to everyone, and more importantly, their innovation and entrepreneurship stories will inspire more people to forge ahead on a new journey and make contributions to a new era.

Lin Qi led REFIRE to become a leader in the commercial application of hydrogen energy technology

"From 0 to 10", 140 million kilometers of hydrogen zero-carbon travel will be realized

Lin Qi (third from right) at work

        Walking into the office park of the headquarters of Shanghai REFIRE Energy Group Co., Ltd., the first thing you see is the eye-catching English word "REFIRE" on the exterior wall, which is exactly the meaning of the company's name "REFIRE". "We hope to find a pollution-free, safe and efficient energy source to reshape the energy and industrial structure and help improve the ecological environment. Lin Qi, chairman and president of REFIRE Group, said that hydrogen energy is the answer we have found.

        Over the past 8 years since its establishment, Lin Qi and his team have always adhered to this original intention, continuously promoted the commercial application of hydrogen energy technology, and have become a leader in this new track - running the first commercial hydrogen energy bus line in China, establishing the first commercial fuel cell fleet, achieving a 90% localization rate in key components, and business layout in 19 provinces and 29 cities across the country and many countries around the world such as Germany, Switzerland, Croatia, Japan, and Malaysia.

Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles "can get out of the lab"

        "I entered the industry in 2004 as soon as I graduated from university. Lin Qi said that at that time, hydrogen fuel cells were still a niche industry that "knew that the future was immeasurable, but the reality was very skinny", and there were less than 10 hydrogen energy companies in the world, and only 2 companies in China were carrying out technological exploration, and they were still in the trial stage of demonstration projects, and they were still far from market application.

        Lin Qi recalls that there were two "highlight moments" in the industry that excited him and influenced his choice to start a business later. One is that at the opening ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle drove into the Bird's Nest, and the other is that around 2010, Daimler-Benz did a global tour of fuel cell vehicles. Lin Qi said that he was touched by this, and he did not hesitate to join the domestic "new energy vehicle journey".

        In 2014, he and his colleagues at the time drove a trial-produced hydrogen fuel cell vehicle almost all over the country, starting from Shanghai, as far west as Shigatse in Tibet, and as far north as Mohe in Heilongjiang. To his surprise, whether it was at high altitude or in extremely cold areas with more than minus 30 degrees Celsius, the test vehicle had not broken down once in more than a year of road test experiments. "That's when I realized that the technology was more mature and I could get out of the lab. So, the following year, Lin Qi founded REFIRE Group, which focuses on hydrogen fuel cell vehicles.

"From 0 to 1" to build a supply chain, "from 1 to 10" to build an industrial ecology

        To achieve the goal of transforming technology into mass products, a strong engine is needed, but an "engine" with good performance is never built by throwing money at it, "forward-looking strategic vision and long-term technology accumulation are indispensable".

        REFIRE first set up a multi-field talent team, "because the fuel cell covers a lot of professional fields and disciplines, and each piece must have core talents." Secondly, from materials, parts to final products, fuel cell vehicles have a very long industrial chain, "and to achieve mass production, the key is to establish a stable and reliable supply chain." After careful investigation, Lin Qi and his team decided to cultivate from scratch in China.

        "To be honest, the parts manufacturing of some domestic factories that we could cooperate with at that time could not meet the needs very well, and our technical team was stationed in the factory, and there may be twenty or thirty people guarding and assisting in the development of a part, and staying for a year or two until the product can be produced consistently. Lin Qi said that he repeatedly polished with one parts supplier after another, and finally built a solid supply chain system. Today, with its strong independent R&D strength, REFIRE has independent development and large-scale production capacity for key components such as fuel cell stacks, membrane electrodes, bipolar plates, hydrogen cycle systems, and booster converters, and has achieved a localization rate of nearly 90% of core components.

        In order to realize the marketization of "from 1 to 10", it is necessary to develop and build an industrial ecology. Lin Qi said that REFIRE Group is developing the market by building an ecosystem, integrating the energy side, the product side and the scene side, and building a hydrogen energy ecology to promote the large-scale application of fuel cell technology in diversified fields, including commercial vehicles.

        Up to now, REFIRE has worked with vehicle companies to jointly develop more than 140 fuel cell models covering various types of application scenarios, deployed more than 3,500 fuel cell vehicles, and achieved a zero-carbon clean mileage of more than 140 million kilometers, equivalent to a distance of 5,000 round-trips from Shanghai to New York, and helped reduce carbon emissions by more than 76,000 tons.

The plant plans to produce 50,000 hydrogen vehicles annually by 2025

        The "Medium and Long-term Plan for the Development of Shanghai's Hydrogen Energy Industry (2022-2035)" issued in June last year proposed that by 2025, the industrial scale of Shanghai's hydrogen energy industry chain will exceed 100 billion yuan. According to industry insiders, the development of Shanghai's hydrogen energy industry has entered an accelerated stage.

        In Lin Qi's view, there should still be industrial support policies, but enterprises need to make some tangible achievements to achieve real sustainable development. He believes that the goal of REFIRE Group is to ensure that products can still be accepted by the market without subsidies after the policy is withdrawn. "To put it simply, it is to make it affordable for customers without policy subsidies. Lin Qi said that this requires reducing costs and increasing efficiency. According to him, REFIRE is currently strengthening the construction of supply chain and production capacity, investing heavily in independent R&D and innovation, and striving to reach the annual supply of 50,000 sets of hydrogen vehicles by 2025.

        Not only that, REFIRE is also constantly "breaking the circle" and trying to cooperate with companies outside the automotive circle. "We have also 'reinvented' ourselves again," said Lin Qi, who is now positioned as a hydrogen energy technology company, actively promoting the application of hydrogen energy technology represented by fuel cell technology to a wider range of fields and scenarios, and currently has projects in material handling, distributed power generation, green hydrogen production, etc.

        "With the accumulation of 140 million kilometers of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles as a new starting point, REFIRE will set out again to create a sustainable future with hydrogen energy technology. Lin Qi said.