(Wen 丨 This newspaper reporter Li Limin)
Advantages such as short replenishment time are highlighted
At the end of last year, the "Specification for the Construction of Electric Passenger Vehicle Sharing and Replacement Power Station" (hereinafter referred to as the "Specification") compiled by the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers and other units was officially released, and the "Specification" was issued specific standards for the basic parameters of the construction of the replacement power station such as battery packs and basic resources, aiming to promote the innovation and development of the power exchange business model.
The industry generally believes that with the "Code" to provide a "template" for the construction of replacement power stations. Due to the shortcomings of the inconsistent production standards of battery manufacturers, consumers have criticized them, so that the pain points of the industry that "drag down" the development of new energy vehicle power exchange have finally ushered in a breakthrough.
It is understood that power exchange is a rapid power replenishment method that uses a centralized charging station to centrally store, charge and deploy a large number of batteries, and has outstanding advantages compared with the currently popular fast charging.
Li Yujun, general manager of GCL Energy Mobile Energy, said in an interview with reporters that power exchange has obvious advantages in operation scenarios such as rental, online contracting, and heavy trucks. Specifically, power exchange can improve the operational efficiency of vehicles, reduce the cost of purchasing a car, increase battery life, reduce floor space, and significantly improve the interaction ability of the station network and battery safety. "It takes only 1-3 minutes for passenger cars to change electricity, and 3-5 minutes for commercial vehicles to change electricity, which is shorter than charging and replenishing energy."
At the same time, industry insiders believe that the centralized management of batteries required for power exchange is not only conducive to battery cascade utilization and recycling, but also reduces the risk of grid load inequality caused by the centralized charging of a large number of new energy vehicles.
Up to now, automakers such as Weilai Automobile, BAIC New Energy, and Dongfeng Motor have successively increased the number of power exchanges. For example, in November last year, NIO and Shell signed a strategic cooperation agreement to carry out electric vehicle energy cooperation globally, and it is expected to build 100 substations by 2025; on December 19, 2021, GCL Energy announced that it will jointly develop a demonstration city with Dongfeng Passenger Vehicles, batch release of replacement taxis, and will sell more than 10,000 Dongfeng commercial vehicle electric heavy trucks in the next 5 years, and build more than 200 substations.
Regain the favor of the market
In fact, as early as more than a decade ago, power exchange has entered the mainland new energy vehicle market, however, limited by the policy environment, technical level, cost factors and market size at that time, it has not been applied on a large scale for many years.
On the one hand, the lack of standards restricts the large-scale promotion of power exchange. The platform design and construction of the substation are often linked to a single battery manufacturer, and factors such as different brands, different models, and different data security management systems make the versatility of the substation weak. At the same time, demand growth and scarcity of power resources have become the main factors restricting the large-scale development of replacement power stations.
On the other hand, the high initial investment has affected the enthusiasm of enterprises to invest in the construction of power stations. According to the data released by Huaxi Securities, the cost of a single substation equipment is about 2 million yuan, and a lot of money will be invested in the construction of multiple substations at the same time, and the operating costs and battery costs are relatively high, which will significantly increase the cost of enterprises to build substations.
However, with the continuous expansion of the scale of the mainland new energy vehicle market and the continuous advancement of the wave of green and low-carbon development of transportation, power exchange, as an efficient and efficient way of replenishing energy for new energy vehicles, has once again attracted the attention of the industry.
In 2020, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued the "New Energy Vehicle Industry Development Plan (2021-2035)", proposing to "accelerate the construction of charging and replacing infrastructure", "encourage the application of power exchange mode", and "improve safety standards and regulatory systems such as charging and replacing". Subsequently, the 2021 government work report proposed to "increase the parking lot, charging pile, substation and other facilities" to quickly "heat up" the power exchange. In November 2021, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the National Automotive Standardization Technical Committee jointly prepared the "Safety Requirements for Electric Vehicle Power Exchange", which became the first basic general national standard implemented in the field of power exchange in the mainland.
This year may become the "first year of the replacement power station"
Li Yujun told reporters that in view of the current problems such as high initial investment and inconsistent standards faced by power exchange, power exchange equipment manufacturers have begun to exert efforts to solve the pain points of the industry. He introduced that major power exchange equipment manufacturers, including GCL Energy, actively cooperate with industry institutions such as china electricity federation to formulate industry standards, explore innovative models such as the establishment of battery asset management companies, reduce the difficulty of investment, and actively develop unattended technology to reduce the labor cost of substation operation.
The release of industry standards and the intensive introduction of support policies have pushed up the "heat" of the power exchange market. According to huaxi securities related calculations, according to the current layout of domestic power exchange operators, by 2025, the market size of power exchange equipment demand will exceed 10 billion yuan. More insiders believe that 2022 is expected to become the "first year of the replacement of power stations".
In Li Yujun's view, with the promotion of green pilot cities in the mainland and the blessing of the separation model of vehicle and electricity, in addition to the passenger car market, power exchange will usher in new market opportunities in the field of logistics vehicles. "In recent years, specific scenarios such as urban distribution are expected to promote the logistics vehicle replacement model on a large scale, and urban taxis and online ride-hailing vehicles will also usher in a replacement year." In addition, electric heavy trucks are in the early stage of rapid development of the industry, under the pressure of environmental protection, urban operation of short-distance heavy trucks will be fully electrified, the average annual growth rate of electric heavy trucks will exceed 100%, the industry penetration rate will reach 30%, and the application scenarios of electric heavy trucks are expected to account for more than 60%. ”
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Produced by | China Energy News (ID:cnenergy)
Trainee Editor | Li Zemin
Responsible editor 丨 Yan Zhiqiang