North China's Hebei Province, which will co-host the 2022 Winter Olympics with Beijing, aims to build an industry cluster on hydrogen energy as a new engine for its coal-fired economy.

A recently released guideline by Hebei's development and reform commission said the province would advance hydrogen-related sectors including production, storage and transportation, fuel cells and applications.

Annual output of the hydrogen industry is expected to reach 15 billion yuan (2.1 billion U.S. dollars) by 2022 and 200 billion yuan by 2030, according to the guideline.

It also plans to turn Zhangjiakou, co-host city of the 2022 Winter Olympics, into a world-class demonstration city for hydrogen energy application, by introducing the cleaner energy into the city's public transport, logistics, communication base stations and other sectors.

China has been promoting green energy use to fulfill its promise to cut carbon emissions per unit of GDP by 60 to 65 percent from 2005 levels by 2030.

Hydrogen energy is expected to make up at least 10 percent of China's terminal energy mix by 2050, with about 1.6 million commercial vehicles to run on hydrogen fuel, the National Alliance of Hydrogen and Fuel Cell has predicted.