Electric vehicle charging infrastructure development guide

State Grid recently announced the first batch of charging equipment tender announcement this year, a total of 17 packages. The tender was used for the construction of charging stations in Shanxi, Hubei, Chongqing, Anhui, Jiangsu, Tianjin, Hebei, Shandong, Zhejiang, Fujian, and Shanxi. The total number of DC piles was 1,888 sets and AC piles were 1,935 sets. The data shows that in 2016, the sales of new energy vehicles in China was 507,000 vehicles, and the accumulated amount was close to 1 million vehicles. The proportion of vehicle piles was far below the reasonable standard. The National Energy Administration previously stated that in 2017 China will strive to add 800,000 charging piles, including 700,000 dedicated piles and 100,000 public piles.

According to the "Electric Vehicle Recharging Infrastructure Development Guidelines (2015-2020)" planning target, by 2020, more than 4.8 million decentralized charging piles will be needed to meet the daily use demand of 5 million new energy vehicles. The Agency expects that with the promotion of the State Grid Corporation of China and China Southern Power Grid, the construction of the charging network will accelerate. By 2020, the scale of China's charging equipment market will reach 132 billion yuan.

For China Southern Power Grid, during the “Thirteenth Five-Year Plan” period, it will invest 660 million yuan to build and operate 13,800 charging piles in Shenzhen. Among them, 200 million will be invested in 2017 for the construction and reconstruction of existing charging piles, and efforts will be made to achieve full coverage of the charging piles in the Shenzhen office districts.

According to a report by the Economic Information Daily, related ministries and commissions are brewing a New Deal, and in 2017, they will focus on accelerating the construction of special charging facilities in residential areas, especially in the government government's internal parking lot, and guiding the industry to explore reasonable business models, and financial subsidies will be tilted toward charging facilities. Industry sources believe that the construction of charging facilities in 2017 will accelerate the structural progress.

The production and sales of new energy vehicles in China have been increasing year by year. According to data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, in 2016, 517,000 new energy vehicles were produced and 507,000 vehicles were sold, an increase of 51.7% and 53% year-on-year, and the number of vehicles held was more than 1 million. According to the plan, it is planned to build 100,000 public charging piles and 860,000 private private charging piles in the same period. However, from the published data, as of the end of 2016, there are 150,000 public charging piles and 80,000 private private charging piles. One, the construction speed is obviously not up to expectations.

“There are still many factors affecting the construction of charging facilities, which have seriously affected their speed of advancement.” Shen Jianxin, deputy director of the marketing department of the State Grid Corporation of China (hereinafter referred to as “State Grid”) told the “Economic Information Daily” reporter that the State Grid has been completed in 2016. There are 22,000 charging piles and a total of more than 40,000 charging piles have been built to form a fast-charging network of “6 vertical, 6 horizontal and two rings” covering 14,000 kilometers, 13 provinces and 95 cities. At the same time, it has been piloted in multiple cities. The main problem for the construction and renovation of charging infrastructure for electric vehicles in residential areas is that the old community has different property ownership, and residents need to install charging piles. The consent of these property units is too much trouble.

At the same time, charging facilities are still difficult to make profit, which is also a factor constraining social capital investment. In May 2014, after the State Grid released the charging facility construction market, companies have rushed to the streets. The first private enterprises occupied the market by burning money. Later state-owned enterprises and central enterprises also took action.

According to data provided by the State Grid, 60 million of the 100,000 charging piles on its car networking platform belong to social capital. “Now our profits are mainly through the opening of the car networking platform, online and offline services to charge some fees, because China's electric vehicle industry is still in the early stages of development, equipment utilization is relatively low, and operation is difficult to profit in the short term.” Shen Jianxin disclose.

Zheng Jiejie, deputy director of the National Energy Administration, also believes that the construction of charging facilities in residential areas is relatively slow. Because of the lack of some special planning guidance, there are problems with staking and blinding in individual places. However, there are still incompatibilities in some charging facilities. There are still barriers to inter-operator payment and information sharing, and the level of interconnection and interoperability is still relatively low. As a whole, the industry is in a period of cultivation, and the business model needs innovation.

It is understood that relevant ministries are further studying policies to solve the above-mentioned problems. According to the plan, in 2017 China will strive to add 800,000 charging piles, including 700,000 dedicated piles and 100,000 public piles. Looking at the total number, the number of newly-added charging piles is nearly 4 times the current capacity, of which the majority of the 700,000 dedicated piles will provide charging services for enterprises and government-specialized vehicles. At present, the National Energy Administration is speeding up research and development of policies concerning the construction of charging facilities for enterprises and government-owned parking lots.

At the same time, the National Energy Administration also proposed that the industry will guide the industry to explore a reasonable business model and strictly implement preferential tariffs. The financial subsidies will be tilted from the purchase of vehicle subsidies to charge subsidies. “The break-through of profit model and subsidy at the operating end will inspire the charging market, especially the enthusiasm for the participation of residential communities and the car park charging market within the unit. In 2017, the construction of charging facilities will accelerate structurally,” said Wu Haibin, an analyst at Huaan Securities.