Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong province, aims to further intensify efforts to develop a sophisticated hydrogen energy industrial system and have its hydrogen energy industry reach 200 billion yuan ($28.6 billion) in value within 10 years.

The South China city plans to come up with a hydrogen energy industrial chain with a production value of over 60 billion yuan by 2025, and an industrial system that consists of production, storage, transaction and application with an output value of 200 billion yuan by 2030, said Chen Jianrong, deputy director of the Guangzhou municipal development and reform commission.

The city aims to develop more than 100 companies related to hydrogen energy and fuel-cells by 2022, with the percentage of fuel-cell vehicles in public transportation and environmental sanitation sectors to be no less than 30 percent.

Having introduced 20 hydrogen energy projects with investment totaling over 4 billion yuan in the past few years, the city will further explore the use of the energy in fields such as public transport, drones, mechanical equipment and shipping in the near future as Guangzhou has been stepping up efforts to reduce reliance on fossil fuel energy.

Experts said that as hydrogen is mostly used in oil refining and for fertilizer production, it's necessary that the clean energy is also adopted in sectors where it is completely absent at the moment, such as transport and power generation.

According to Li Can from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, China has enhanced policy support for research and development in hydrogen fuel cells in recent years, making a significant contribution to clean energy transitions.

Investment in hydrogen can help foster new technological and industrial development in economies around the world, creating skilled jobs, said the International Energy Agency.

IEA analysis said the cost of producing hydrogen from renewable electricity could fall 30 percent by 2030 as a result of declining costs of renewables and the scaling up of hydrogen production.

Fuel cells, refueling equipment and electrolysers (which produce hydrogen from electricity and water) can all benefit from mass production, it said.