On holidays like the "National Day", the owners of electric vehicles inevitably have concerns about charging when they travel by themselves. Taking the data of the National Day holiday in 2021 as an example, "the daily flow of Shanghai brand pure electric vehicles in the service area of the nine main expressways around Shanghai in the Yangtze River Delta is 1478 times, and during the National Day, it has surged to 4500 times, three times the usual scale." Zhong Minghui, deputy director of Shanghai New Energy Vehicle Public Data Collection and Monitoring Research Center, pointed out that under the condition of limited highway resources, the surge in the number of new energy vehicles has brought great pressure to the charging industry. Based on this, fast charging becomes a feasible countermeasure.

Speed up of charging pile construction

According to the data of the National Energy Administration, 1.3 million new charging piles were added in the first six months of this year, 3.8 times the same period last year. As of June this year, China has built a total of 3.92 million charging piles and the world's largest charging and changing infrastructure.

"Despite the impact of COVID-19 in the first half of the year, the charging infrastructure is still in an explosive growth stage. The half year increment of charging piles has exceeded the level of last year." At the 8th China International Electric Vehicle Charging and Exchange Industry Conference held recently, Tong Zongqi, Deputy Secretary General of China Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure Promotion Alliance, introduced that.

However, although the development speed is considerable, it still cannot meet the needs of car owners. "The charging industry cannot keep up with the development speed of electric vehicles, and cannot adapt to the demand brought by the rapid increase in the number of electric vehicles." Ouyang Minggao, an academician of the CAS Member, said that the popularization and application of super charging technology should be further accelerated.

At the beginning of 2022, the National Development and Reform Commission, the National Energy Administration and other departments jointly issued the Implementation Opinions on Further Improving the Service Guarantee Capacity of Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure, which clearly stated that by the end of the "Fourteenth Five Year Plan", China will form a moderately advanced, balanced, intelligent and efficient charging infrastructure system that can meet the charging needs of more than 20 million electric vehicles. Subsequently, Guangzhou, Guizhou, Jiangsu, Shanghai and other places successively introduced subsidy measures or implementation measures for new charging facilities, further refined the macro policies, and focused on the construction of charging and changing infrastructure in the scenarios of residential areas, urban public and highways to promote the development of high-power charging and overcharge piles. For example, Guangzhou proposed to build a "super charging city", and plans to build 1000 super charging and changing power stations by 2025; Nanjing will subsidize new charging facilities according to the power of charging piles, with a subsidy of 200 yuan per kilowatt hour for AC piles, 300 yuan per kilowatt for public AC piles with orderly charging function for residential area construction and unified operation management, and a maximum subsidy of 700 yuan per kilowatt for DC piles.

High power charging is favored

Up to 87.9% of public charging pile users choose high-power charging facilities of 120 kW and above, and only 1.6% choose charging facilities of less than 60 kW. More than half of the users believe that the current proportion of fast and slow charging piles does not match the actual needs of users, and that "fast charging piles are seldom idle, and slow charging piles are not used".

In order to meet the charging demand of vehicle owners, in recent years, vehicle enterprises have continuously improved the charging technology, and the fast charging capacity has become a key indicator to measure vehicle performance. For example, GAC E'an V Plus, Xiaopeng G9, Great Wall Salon Jijialong and other vehicles have the ability to charge for 5 minutes and drive for 200 kilometers through 800V high-voltage platform, 600A rapid current, 480kW overcharge power, 6C/4C super rate battery and other technologies.

Charging operators also give priority to high-power charging and overcharging. "Judging from the power of the newly built public charging piles in the past four years, the high-power charging piles of 120 kW and above have grown rapidly, of which the average annual growth rate of the overcharge piles of 180 kW and above is as high as 92.8%. Especially this year, the proportion of high-power charging and overcharging in the newly built public charging piles has increased significantly.

However, there are still many difficulties in the landing process of the super charging pile. "There are three elements in the construction of charging stations: electricity, land and technology. After years of development, the power resources behind the meter of shopping malls and buildings are gradually exhausted, and the success rate of high-voltage approval is less than 40%." Zhang Xingchen, co-founder of Shenzhen Jiama Energy, pointed out that the construction of charging piles is faced with problems such as high cost, great difficulty and long cycle.

"Except for some regions, charging operators do not earn money, and the gross profit margin of equipment manufacturers is less than 10%. In 2018, the average price per watt of charging pile bidding of State Grid was 1.8 yuan, which has now been reduced to 0.5 yuan, directly cutting more than half." Gao Luping, product manager of Hebei Tonghe New Energy Technology, said frankly that it is very difficult to reduce the cost of charging piles.

Business people also said that the current regional power resources and site resources with large reserves are tight, resulting in the poor profitability of some small and medium-sized operators. "We hope to combine the resources of local operators to form a joint force and jointly promote the development of the industry."

Precise positioning and key layout

It is considered feasible to take the lead in building a fast charging network in key regions. According to Tong Zongqi, with the increase of the comprehensive endurance mileage of new energy vehicles, the travel demand of car owners is within 500 kilometers. Therefore, local "one network" of energy supply can be formed, such as the charging network in the Yangtze River Delta and Beijing Tianjin Hebei region.

"Now we need to more accurately locate the use of the scene." Tong Zongqi pointed out that the charging pile market has gradually broken down from the original general public and special fields into a multi field market structure with the model structure as the service object, including new energy private cars, buses, buses, logistics vehicles, sanitation vehicles and other models. According to different travel and charging scenarios, suitable AC piles, small power DC, large power DC, overcharge, etc. are matched.

The urban and rural charging market is also an urgent part to be improved. Chen Qingquan, an academician of the CAE Member, believes that it is necessary to speed up the improvement of charging infrastructure in counties and townships, and accelerate the realization of "full coverage of electric vehicle charging stations in counties and counties" and "full coverage of charging piles in villages and towns". It is necessary to improve the data interaction standards between new energy vehicle batteries and charging facilities, strengthen the R&D and application of vehicle network interaction technology, explore and promote orderly charging, V2G vehicle network interaction and other forms, realize the systematic interaction between electric vehicles and the power grid, and explore the pilot application of "light storage charge release" integration for charging facilities in units and parks.

The above enterprise personage also said that in Beijing, Shenzhen and other cities with a large number of electric vehicles, orderly charging and V2G vehicle network interaction are being promoted. At that time, electric vehicles will not only be users of electric energy, but also providers of electric energy, which is the focus of future market competition and the main profit point.Editor/Xing Wentao