How to Read China's Green Hydrogen Certification: The 2020 Group Standard's 14.51 and 4.9 kgCO2e/kgH2 Thresholds, the DL/T 3015—2025 Industry Standard, the First Evaluation Statement, What the Hydrogen Plan and the Industrial Plan Require, and Where Green Certificates Fit

Short answer. China has no government-issued 'green hydrogen' certificate in the retrieved sources. What it has is a definition ladder. The Energy Law recognises hydrogen as energy; the 2021–2035 plan prioritises renewable-energy hydrogen and sets a 2025 output goal; a 2020 group standard from the China Hydrogen Alliance defines low-carbon, clean and renewable hydrogen by life-cycle carbon intensity (14.51 and 4.9 kgCO2e/kgH2); an NEA-approved industry standard, DL/T 3015—2025, takes effect on 18 June 2026; and in June 2026 the alliance issued the first pre-evaluation statement under it. Policy documents use the umbrella term 清洁低碳氢 (clean low-carbon hydrogen), covering industrial by-product hydrogen and renewable hydrogen, and call for recognition standards to be written. The electricity side has its own instrument: the green certificate is the sole proof of renewable electricity, and the NEA is linking it to carbon accounting and footprints. This guide reads each rung and says what each document does and does not prove.

1. Law and plan

The Energy Law of the PRC lists hydrogen energy among the resources defined as energy (Article 2), says the state actively and orderly advances hydrogen development and utilisation (Article 33), and defines hydrogen energy as energy released when hydrogen undergoes a chemical reaction as an energy carrier. The 2021–2035 hydrogen industry plan prioritises renewable-energy hydrogen and strictly controls fossil-based hydrogen, and sets a 2025 goal of renewable hydrogen output of 100,000–200,000 t/yr with 1–2 million t/yr of CO2 reduction, within a supply system based mainly on nearby use of industrial by-product hydrogen and renewable hydrogen. CNWattHub reading: neither text defines 'green hydrogen' numerically; the plan's operative category is 可再生能源制氢 (hydrogen from renewable energy), and the thresholds come from standards, not law.

2. The 2020 group standard

The China Hydrogen Alliance's December 2020 notice on the group standard 低碳氢、清洁氢与可再生氢的标准与评价 (issued by 中国产学研合作促进会) states that the standard uses life-cycle assessment and sets thresholds of 14.51 kgCO2e/kgH2 for low-carbon hydrogen and 4.9 kgCO2e/kgH2 for clean and renewable hydrogen, with renewable hydrogen additionally requiring renewable energy as the production energy source; the alliance calls it the first standard worldwide to quantify hydrogen's carbon emissions. CNWattHub reading: 'clean' and 'renewable' share the same threshold and differ by energy source, so a renewable-hydrogen claim under this standard carries two tests — the carbon-intensity number and the origin of the electricity.

3. The industry standard: DL/T 3015—2025

DL/T 3015—2025 清洁低碳氢评价标准 is a recommended power-industry standard approved and issued by the NEA on 18 December 2025, effective 18 June 2026, under the CEC hydrogen–electricity coordination standardisation technical committee; it specifies evaluation methods and requirements for low-carbon, clean and renewable hydrogen and applies to life-cycle evaluation of hydrogen products used mainly as energy, with other uses by reference. The alliance states that it led the drafting of the group standard, the DL/T 3015 industry standard and an industry standard on the carbon footprint of water-electrolysis hydrogen systems, and that DL/T 3015—2025 is China's first industry standard for evaluating hydrogen's low-carbon attributes. The text of DL/T 3015—2025 was not retrieved for this guide, so whether it keeps the 2020 thresholds is not stated here.

On 22 June 2026 the alliance issued, under DL/T 3015—2025, a renewable-hydrogen pre-evaluation statement for CHN Energy's 如东光氢储一体化项目 — described by the alliance as the first renewable-hydrogen evaluation under the industry standard — using life-cycle assessment on design conditions covering raw-material acquisition, transport, production and on-site storage; the alliance describes the project as 400 MW of PV, a 60 MW/120 MWh storage station and a 1,500 Nm³/h electrolysis plant producing 427.9 t/yr of renewable hydrogen. CNWattHub reading: a 'pre-evaluation' on design conditions is a statement about the design, issued by the body that wrote the standard; it is not a government certificate and not an operating-data verification.

4. What the industrial plan asks for

The MIIT/NDRC/NEA implementation plan (工信厅联节函〔2024〕499号, 30 December 2024) treats industrial by-product hydrogen and renewable-energy hydrogen as 'clean low-carbon hydrogen', targets scaled application by 2027 in metallurgy, synthetic ammonia, methanol and refining with demonstrations in industrial green microgrids, shipping, aviation and rail, and calls for formulating standards for clean low-carbon hydrogen recognition and for mutual recognition of international product carbon-footprint rules. MIIT's interpretation says China's 2023 hydrogen output exceeded 35 million tonnes (about one third of the world), that according to estimates by relevant units renewable hydrogen capacity exceeded 100,000 t/yr by June 2024 with about 8 million t/yr planned or under construction, and that electrolyser manufacturing capacity reached 38 GW across more than 300 companies by end-2023. CNWattHub note: the two figures are not comparable — 100,000 t/yr is an estimate of renewable-hydrogen capacity at June 2024 and 35 million tonnes is 2023 output, each stated only as a level exceeded — so their ratio is not renewable hydrogen's share of production, and this guide draws no conclusion from them about the plan's choice of the 'clean low-carbon' category.

The NEA's 2025 hydrogen pilot notice sets conditions for scaled renewable-hydrogen pilots: the paired renewable project's exported share no more than 20%, in principle no use of system regulating resources, electrolyser capacity of at least 100 MW (or gasification of at least 20,000 Nm³/h) and electrolyser operating-load regulation capability of not less than the 50%–100% level; hydrogen pipeline pilots are limited to renewable-energy hydrogen as the transported medium. CNWattHub reading: these are project-selection conditions, not a certification, but they show the regulator's working definition of a renewable-hydrogen project — dedicated renewable supply with limited export to the grid.

5. Where green certificates fit

发改能源〔2023〕1044号 makes the green electricity certificate the sole proof of the environmental attribute of renewable electricity and the sole voucher for recognising renewable power production and consumption, with one certificate per 1,000 kWh. In its July 2025 reply to an NPC deputy, the NEA said 发改环资〔2024〕113号 (January 2024) requires linking certificates with carbon accounting and carbon-market management and clarifying their scope and recognition in product carbon footprints, that 发改能源〔2025〕262号 (March 2025) strengthens certificate use in key-product carbon-footprint accounting and labelling, and that in May 2025 RE100 announced unconditional full recognition of Chinese certificates. CNWattHub reading: for grid-connected electrolysis, the certificate is the instrument that would evidence the electricity's renewable origin; none of the retrieved documents states how certificates are used inside the DL/T 3015 evaluation, so ask the evaluator.

6. The international frame

The IEA's Global Hydrogen Review 2025 says Canada, the EU, India, the UK and the US have certification schemes with defined GHG methodologies, that Brazil and the rest of Latin America, Japan and Korea have announced schemes and thresholds with methodologies pending, that ISO 19870 Part 1 on production could become a standard before end-2025 with Parts 2–4 on transport in 2026, and that India's April 2025 scheme requires compliance with a 2 kg CO2-eq/kg H2 standard for incentives. The IEA also says the EU RED includes a target to meet 42% of industrial hydrogen demand with renewable fuels of non-biological origin and names China's industrial clean low-carbon hydrogen plan among demand-side policy changes. The EU delegated acts themselves were not retrievable for this guide and are not described.

Reading table

Checklist

CNWattHub editorial method, not a sourced rule:

1. Ask which standard the claim is made under: the 2020 group standard, DL/T 3015—2025, or a foreign scheme.
2. Ask who evaluated it and whether the statement is a pre-evaluation on design data or a verification of operating data.
3. For a renewable-hydrogen claim, ask for the electricity-origin evidence (dedicated plant, direct connection, or green certificates) and the life-cycle carbon figure.
4. For export, map the Chinese evaluation against the buyer's scheme; thresholds and system boundaries differ.
5. Watch the DL/T 3015—2025 text once it is in force for the thresholds and the treatment of grid electricity.

Scope limits

Legal texts, one plan, two standards information pages, two alliance announcements, one ministry interpretation, one NEA pilot notice, one NEA reply and one IEA review only. The China Hydrogen Alliance is an industry body and its statements are attributed to it; the DL/T 3015—2025 text and the EU delegated acts were not retrieved; no price or volume of certified hydrogen is quoted. Not legal, regulatory or investment advice.