A few days ago, the National Development and Reform Commission and other 10 departments jointly issued opinions to further enhance the service support capability of electric vehicle charging infrastructure, and made it clear that by the end of the "Tenth Five-Year Plan", China will form a moderately advanced, balanced, intelligent and efficient charging infrastructure system, which can meet the charging needs of more than 20 million electric vehicles.
According to the data of China Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure Promotion Alliance (hereinafter referred to as the Alliance), by the end of 2021, the number of public and private charging piles in China totaled 2.617 million, up 70.1% year-on-year. Tong Zongqi, director of the Alliance Information Department, said that the popularization of China’s charging infrastructure is very fast, and there will be a major breakthrough in 2022, and the service capability will be the core of the future competition in the charging infrastructure industry.
Private charging piles should be the main force
The data shows that in 2021, the number of charging piles installed on the vehicle in China reached 597,000, up 323.9% year-on-year, more than three times. Private charging piles are convenient to use, and the charging price is charged according to the civil electricity price standard of "combined users", which is relatively more favorable. Cui Dongshu, secretary-general of the National Passenger Car Market Information Association, believes that home charging is the development trend, and the overall structure of the future charging infrastructure should be mainly private charging piles, supplemented by public charging piles.
However, according to statistics and surveys, about 50% of car owners in China are unable to install charging piles in their communities at present, mainly because of "selfless home parking spaces" and "community properties are not allowed".
Tong Zongqi said that there are four main ways to solve the problem of residents charging in the community at this stage. First, unified construction and management, developers should do a good job in planning and unified construction management when building new communities; The second is the sharing of private piles; The third is to build public charging facilities in the community; The fourth is to build a storage and filling integrated station or a storage and filling integrated pile.
At present, special supporting policies have been issued in many places in terms of unified construction and management and private pile sharing. The Beijing Urban Management Committee recently drafted the Opinions on Strengthening the Construction and Management of Electric Vehicle Charging Facilities in Residential Areas, and solicited opinions from the society. The exposure draft proposes to strictly implement the proportion of charging facilities in new residential areas. The newly-built residential area project should strictly follow the planning and design standards to implement the requirements for the proportion of charging facilities or the expected installation conditions, and include the construction of charging facilities in the scope of project acceptance. The exposure draft also proposes that Beijing will provide power supporting services while accelerating the construction of charging facilities in residential areas, and encourage the sharing and utilization of self-use charging piles.
Many enterprises have made substantial progress in the construction of public charging facilities in residential areas. Kang Yong, chairman of Dupu (Suzhou) New Energy Technology Co., Ltd. told the reporter that since the establishment of the first Dupu E station in November 2020, the company’s related business has developed very fast. Up to now, it has covered more than 400 middle and high-end communities in China, and it is expected to cover more than 2,000 communities in 2022. In this regard, Tong Zongqi said that the unified construction of community public piles by operation service providers can not only effectively make up for the gap of private piles, but also facilitate the car owners to charge nearby, which is worth promoting.
Public charging piles are relatively concentrated.
There is a public charging station near the South Fourth Ring Road in Beijing, which mainly provides energy replenishment services for new energy vehicles in the surrounding Xinfadi market and several residential areas. Even in the early hours, the utilization rate here is basically maintained at 100%.
Li Cheng, who lives nearby, often comes here to charge his car. He told reporters that the overall feeling is that the distribution of charging piles in Beijing is relatively concentrated, with more urban areas and fewer suburbs, more charging piles in new facilities and fewer charging piles in old communities.
Centralized layout is not only the reality of Beijing, but also the current distribution of public charging piles in China. Judging from the alliance data, it is mainly reflected in two aspects. One is the relative concentration of regions. From a national perspective, the number of public charging piles in the top ten regions accounts for over 70%. The other is that operators are relatively concentrated.
By the end of 2021, the number of public charging piles operated by national charging operation enterprises exceeded 100,000, including Star Charging, Special Call, State Grid and Yunkuai Charging. The total number of public charging piles in these four head enterprises reached 850,000, accounting for 74% of the total.
According to the relevant person in charge of TELD New Energy Co., Ltd., up to now, the accumulated charging capacity of the company has exceeded 11 billion kWh. At the same time, the country’s largest Internet cloud platform for charging industry has been built, with 350,000 charging piles connected to the platform, with an average daily charging capacity of 12 million kWh and 15,000 service enterprises.
Tong Zongqi said that the public charging field is divided into two types: B-end operating vehicles and C-end private cars, and B-end vehicles generally have their own charging stations or fixed charging stations. The charging problem of this part of the car has been basically solved. At present, the problem mainly focuses on the difficulty of charging people’s own cars. This requires car owners to plan in advance, and also requires relevant operating companies to gradually improve their services.
Double the number of power stations
The main way to replenish energy for new energy vehicles is to change electricity. In the past two years, the power exchange mode has been heating up, and even Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Limited, a battery head enterprise, has recently announced that it will cut into the power exchange track.
By the end of 2021, there were 1,298 power stations in the top ten areas of China, which doubled compared with 2020. The top three operators are Weilai, Aodong and Hangzhou Botan. In the past year, Weilai has obviously accelerated the construction of power stations, with an increase of 614 power stations in 2021.
At the policy level, power exchange has also ushered in new benefits. On February 10th, the National Development and Reform Commission and the National Energy Administration issued the Opinions on Improving the System, Mechanism and Policy Measures of Green and Low-carbon Energy Transformation, demanding to improve the clean alternative policy of energy in the transportation field. We will promote large-capacity electrified public transport and clean energy vehicles such as electricity, hydrogen energy, advanced bio-liquid fuel and natural gas, improve the layout and service facilities of charging and replacing electricity, hydrogenation and gas filling (LNG) stations, and reduce the energy cost of clean energy in the transportation field.
Tongzongqi analyzed that for enterprises, changing power stations requires high construction costs and maintenance costs. Generally speaking, power exchange may be more suitable for the commercial field, and it plays a more auxiliary role in the C-end market.
Cui Dongshu also said that the power exchange mode can bring good experience to high-end users and users in special scenes such as mines. However, the disadvantages are also obvious. Because there is almost no room for expansion of the structural freedom of the battery in vehicle design, it is very difficult to adapt all models.
Tong Zongqi believes that the travel scenarios and charging requirements of different models are different, and the charging infrastructure is also different. More attention should be paid to how the charging scenarios can serve more car owners.
"Overall, with the rapid development of new energy vehicles, there are many new opportunities in the field of charging and replacing electricity." Cui Dongshu said that the competition of charging and replacing systems in some places is fierce, which will also promote the development of new energy automobile industry in China to some extent. (Reporter Liu Wei)