On the road to the replenishment of new energy vehicles, whether to "charge" or "change" has always been the two sides of the industry's hot discussion. In the past 2021, China's power exchange industry model has almost ushered in an unprecedented leap-forward development.
In this year, the state implemented the power exchange pilot, 11 cities took the lead in starting the power exchange mode pilot, and the first basic general national standard "Electric Vehicle Replacement Safety Requirements" was officially implemented; in the same year, the power exchange ecosystem gradually expanded, the State Grid, state power investment, Sinopec and other industry giants have entered the game, and the early layout in the field of power exchange Aodong, Weilai, Geely and other enterprises continue to deepen cultivation. According to the latest data from the China Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure Promotion Alliance, as of November 2021, the number of substations in China is 1192, an increase of more than 100% year-on-year.
Compared with the current mainstream charging mode, what is the reason for the rapid development of the power exchange mode? Under the "3060" dual carbon target, what are the main application scenarios for power exchange in the future? In addition to the current application pilot, how far is the model from large-scale application? At the "2021 Second China International Power Exchange Model Industry Conference" held recently, industry guests and enterprise representatives conducted a speculation on the above issues.
The advantages of power exchange are obvious, and enterprises have accelerated their layout
When it comes to the reasons for the rapid development of the power exchange mode, it is necessary to mention its own unique advantages. At the conference, Zhou Libo, director of the Standardization Management Center of the China Electricity Council (China Electricity Federation), analyzed the advantages of the power exchange mode from five levels: user, car company, battery, power grid, country and society.
Zhou Libo, Director of the Standardization Management Center of the China Electricity Council (CLP); Image source: BRICS Power Exchange Forum
First of all, at the user level, the power exchange mode can provide convenient and fast services like fuel vehicle refueling; at the same time, the "battery rental" can reduce the user's car purchase cost; in addition, it can meet the user's high-frequency power supply needs and improve operational efficiency.
At the level of car companies, power exchange can reduce the amount of battery loaded and improve the energy efficiency of the whole vehicle; the separation of vehicle and electricity can reduce the sales cost of car companies and the cost of battery maintenance, and improve the utilization rate of funds.
At the battery level, through the professional charging and maintenance of the battery to improve the power battery life, improve the economy of electric vehicles; vehicle-electricity separation to users and enterprises to bring convenience at the same time, but also let the battery assets return to the use of attributes, help to promote battery circulation, improve the use of efficiency; through the centralized battery management, cascade utilization, recycling and other modes of operation, to achieve sustainable profitability in the closed-loop state; the compatibility of batteries can also promote the unification of standards and technologies.
At the power grid level, serving the same number of vehicles, the charging power of the power exchange mode is only 1/4 to 1/2 of the charging mode, which can significantly reduce the load on the grid and the impact on the power grid; the power exchange can use valley electricity to charge the power battery and avoid peak charging; at the same time, the power exchange can also participate in the grid demand response, releasing excess power to the grid during the peak hours of daytime electricity consumption, and assisting the power grid to meet peak load requirements.
At the national and social levels, under the power exchange model, car companies rely less on the national subsidy policy, which is conducive to the rapid rise of the electric vehicle industry.
Wang Zidong, deputy secretary-general of the China Automotive Power Battery Industry Innovation Alliance, also pointed out that the power exchange has obvious advantages in terms of power replenishment time, battery utilization rate, vehicle procurement cost, etc., and can achieve vehicle and electricity separation. In addition, under the management of effective no dead angle monitoring, the use rate and service life and battery maintenance will reach a relatively high level. "The power exchange mode not only meets the requirements of promoting the innovation of electric vehicle models, but also solves the difficult problems of pure electric vehicles in the popularization process, and the power exchange is not perfect, but it can indeed solve some problems that the original charging cannot solve." Prince Dong said.
It is worth mentioning that based on the advantages of the power exchange itself, coupled with the continuous increase of the policy, in addition to the continuous expansion of the power exchange ecosystem in 2021, the enterprises with various layouts and power exchanges have also announced their respective power exchange development plans.
According to the combing, by 2025, the State Grid plans to build more than 1,000 public and commercial substations; the State Power Investment Plan invests in 4,000 substations; Sinopec plans to build 5,000 charging and swapping power stations; Weilai plans to build more than 4,000 substations; Geely plans to operate 5,000 intelligent substations; Aodong's goal is the most radical, and it plans to invest in the construction of 10,000 substations by 2025. According to CICC's latest forecast, it is expected that by 2025, the number of new energy vehicle replacement stations will reach 22,000-26,000, which shows the great potential for the development of the power exchange market.
The power exchange is mainly oriented to the B-end, and the heavy truck becomes a new force for power exchange
Specific to the practical application scenarios of the power exchange mode, Professor Chen Quanshi of Tsinghua University said that at present, it is mainly oriented to the B-end, and the challenge of facing the C-end is very large. "It is difficult for private vehicles to change electricity, different brand models, different voltage standards, and different batteries; and the operating vehicles of the B-end rental companies, bus companies, and transportation companies are all uniformly designed."
Tsinghua University Professor Chen Quanshi; Image source: BRICS Power Exchange Forum
Wang Zidong also said that it is more appropriate to start with public domain vehicles in the power exchange mode, such as car group cars, online car-hailing vehicles, logistics vehicles, buses, and sweepers; after gaining experience, it is more appropriate to infiltrate private cars that cannot install charging piles at home.
For this development path, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology also clearly pointed out in May 2021 that it will launch the pilot application of the new energy vehicle replacement mode, and encourages pilots in public sectors such as public transportation, taxi, urban logistics and distribution, ports, and mines. And at present, the field of public transportation such as taxis and online car-hailing has indeed become the main force of the power exchange model.
Speech content of China Automobile Data Co., Ltd. KangZejun GOLDEN BRICK Power Exchange Forum; Image source: Gaz Car photo
A set of analysis data given by Kang Zejun of China Automobile Data Co., Ltd. shows that since the name of the replacement model appeared in the 333rd batch of new car announcements, to the 346th batch of new car announcements, there are 22 power-changing model brands of 16 passenger car companies. Among them, in addition to Weilai Automobile, other brands of power exchange products are mainly based on rental and leasing.
It is worth noting that in addition to operating vehicles in the public sector, heavy trucks for commercial vehicles have become a new force in the power exchange model. Because, driven by the "3060" double carbon target, the heavy trucks that occupy 2/3 of the carbon emissions in the transportation field have become the object of national key adjustment, in addition to the development of hydrogen fuel cell paths, power replacement heavy trucks have also become a major direction of development.
Data show that compared with fuel vehicles, every 1,000 new energy heavy trucks can reduce carbon dioxide emissions and 12,500 tons of pollutant emissions per year, and reduce energy consumption costs by 5%-10%. "Heavy trucks are polluted, but electric heavy trucks are very heavy, and there are many goods, and it is difficult for traditional charging methods to meet their use requirements, so heavy trucks are advocated to replace electricity." Wang Zidong said that the replacement of heavy trucks can be quickly replenished, solve the problem of work section, arbitrarily allocate working hours, and can be applied to special line transportation, branch line short fall, port inverted, trunk line transportation and other scenarios.
It is precisely under the stimulation of the "double carbon" target that the new energy commercial vehicle market, including heavy trucks, has rebounded after four years of continuous decline in 2021. According to the data, from January to October 2021, the cumulative sales volume of new energy commercial vehicles was 126,600 units, an increase of 55.88% year-on-year. Specifically, the sales area of heavy trucks for electricity replacement is concentrated in key areas for air pollution prevention and control, of which the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei and surrounding areas, the Fenwei Plain region, and the Yangtze River Delta region account for more than 90%. The analysis points out that in the whole year of 2021, the sales of new energy commercial vehicles will exceed 160,000 units.
Liu Xubao, deputy director of the Green Power Transportation Industry Innovation Center of the State Power Investment Corporation; Image source: BRICS Power Exchange Forum
Liu Xubao, deputy director of the State Power Investment Green Power Transportation Industry Innovation Center, said that by 2030, the penetration rate of China's new energy heavy-duty truck market will exceed 50%, the market ownership will exceed 5 million, the investment layout of replacement power stations will exceed 40,000, and the new market scale in the next ten years is estimated to exceed 10 trillion yuan.
Power exchange is not the only mode, and the battery standard is still the biggest constraint on private car power exchange
In fact, after years of exploration by the industry, from the current practical application results, the power exchange mode is more suitable for commercial vehicles and operational passenger cars. For the private passenger car sector, the industry generally believes that battery standards are the biggest constraint.
Huang Chunhua, General Manager of Brand and Public Affairs Center of Aodong New Energy Automobile Technology Co., Ltd.; Image source: BRICS Power Exchange Forum
As the pioneer and leader of the global power exchange model, Huang Chunhua, general manager of the brand and public affairs center of Aodong New Energy Automobile Technology Co., Ltd., said frankly: "The main challenge of the private passenger car market power exchange is that the standard of the battery pack is not uniform, and now each family is different, the length, width and height are different, and the BMS communication protocol is not the same. To this end, he called on automakers to focus on model development rather than battery packs. Correspondingly, the battery pack should become a standardized product, a mobile energy with social attributes, and operated and managed by a third-party company.
In the view of Ding Xiaohua, deputy director of the Shanghai New Energy Vehicle Public Data Acquisition and Monitoring Research Center, in addition to the difficulty of unifying battery standards, there is also a problem of the scarcity of space for the replacement power station. "The main domestic gas station operator holds the hydrogenation in one hand, and the power exchange with the other hand, to the left or to the right, they are still observing."
Ding Xiaohua also pointed out that at present, about 55 vehicles travel every month for every 100 new energy vehicles in Shanghai, and about 42% of the travel vehicles have been charged. In addition, the amount of electricity charged at public field stations accounts for less than 50% of the total charged electricity. "Our continuous analysis of the 600 public charging stations in Shanghai also found that their charging rate is also around 10%, and the charging utilization rate of the current public charging station is far from saturation."
As the vanguard of the promotion of new energy vehicle cities, the application of Shanghai's charging supporting infrastructure or a microcosm of the development of new energy vehicles, which also shows that power exchange is not the only mode, charging also has its own scenes and necessities.
Wang Zidong pointed out that power exchange and charging are not completely opposite, this is a new choice, and has considerable social benefits. "When the life of the battery pack increases and the safety is improved, the passenger car in the power exchange mode will be widely used in the market, and not only the B-end car, but also the C-end car (private car) will gradually catch up with this demand."
Huang Chunhua frankly said that in the future, new energy vehicle users have time to charge, no time to change the power, and can also upgrade the battery by changing the power station, so that users have a variety of choices, and more convenient use is the focus of industrial development. He also pointed out that behind the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology's recent notice that in 2022, the pilot project of fully electrifying public domain vehicles will be launched, and it must be a combination of charging and power replacement to promote the full electrification of public domain vehicles. "In the next two to three years, in the field of public transportation, transportation and other segments, the popularization of the power exchange model will accelerate." And this may also be one of the confidences of Aodong to build 10,000 substations in 2025.
According to reports, the number of stations built in 2021 has doubled compared with the past, and the total number of replacement power stations is currently more than 500. "Compared with the 10,000 targets, the current number may not be worth mentioning, but there is a word called 'thick accumulation and thin hair', when Aodong has done all the preparatory work, it can be quickly copied and form a polymerization effect." From 2022 to 2023, Aodong is still in the period of urban development and business layout, but 2024-2025 will definitely be a period of rapid growth and expansion. Huang Chunhua said.
Wang Shuangfu, General Manager of HKUST Intelligence; Image source: BRICS Power Exchange Forum
Wang Shuangfu, general manager of HKUST Intelligence, also said that there will be a relatively large-scale application of the power exchange mode in the next three to five years, and under the "double carbon" goal, charging/changing is expected to develop in the direction of light, storage, charging and replacement in the future. "At present, coal power and transportation are the two major sources of carbon emissions in China, so replacing coal power generation with clean energy such as photovoltaics and wind power will be the trend of the times, and there is instability in such clean energy, which requires the use of energy storage, and new energy vehicles are an important path for transportation carbon reduction, and charging and replacing electricity will follow."
After a speculation, it can be found that the new energy vehicle energy supplement system is not a single charging or power exchange, charging and replacing have their own best application scenarios, in public transportation, transportation and other segments, the benefits and development prospects of power exchange are beyond doubt, and at the private consumption end, charging or conditional power exchange have a large space for development. However, no matter what the way, for the use scenarios and needs of different users, providing a most suitable way of replenishment has always been the focus of the entire industry, and it is expected that with the joint efforts of the entire industry, a rechargeable, replaceable and upgradable energy replenishment system will be popularized as soon as possible.