Install charging piles What to do if there are not enough parking spaces in the community

On July 30, 2021, a meeting of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee called for tapping the potential of the domestic market and supporting the accelerated development of new energy vehicles. The "New Energy Automobile Industry Development Plan (2021-2035)" issued by the State Council proposes to strengthen the construction of infrastructure such as charging and replacing, hydrogenation, etc., and accelerate the formation of highways and urban and rural public charging networks that are moderately advanced, mainly fast charging, and supplemented by slow charging.

With the gradual improvement of government supporting policies, the deepening of the reform of decentralization services of relevant functional departments, the innovation of the business model of electric pile operation enterprises, and the extension of private pile services for new energy vehicle enterprises, the mainland has built the world's largest network of charging facilities. However, the survey shows that by the end of 2021, about half of new energy vehicle owners still have not built charging facilities with their cars.

Where is the difficulty of landing with the construction of private charging piles with the car? What are the effective solutions in various places? This edition today launched a series of reports on "Charging Infrastructure Investigation", through the reporter's investigation and interview in many places, to jointly explore the way to crack the "charging difficulty".

- Editor

"You don't have to run between the property and the power supply bureau, you can apply for a charging pile by scanning a code." Zeng Jingxuan, who lives in Langxia Community, Songgang Street, Bao'an District, Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, did not expect that the "Easy Charging" service launched by the Shenzhen Power Supply Bureau of China Southern Power Grid made it so convenient for her to install charging piles.

"The property requires the fire department to agree first, and then issue a charging pile installation certificate, thanks to the Lantu Auto after-sales department took the initiative to investigate, 3 working days to complete all the procedures." Ding Yi, who lives in the Parrot Garden in Wuhan, Hubei Province, said.

The installation of private charging piles only needs to scan a two-dimensional code, and the approval of pile construction for property, power supply bureau and fire protection is handled by the car company "shoulder to shoulder"... For Zeng Jingxuan and Ding Yi, the process of an private pile can be described as smooth. However, the reporter's investigation found that for the vast majority of old residential areas, especially those with serious shortage of parking spaces and no fixed parking spaces, it is still a "big difficulty" problem to achieve convenient charging.

On January 18, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology held an inter-ministerial joint meeting on energy conservation and new energy automobile industry development in 2022, proposing to accelerate the construction of charging and replacing infrastructure and solve the problem of "charging difficulties" in old residential areas and highways. In Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Chengdu and other cities, some community industry committees, property companies, automobile companies, and power departments have innovated construction models and found ways to alleviate the charging problems of car owners.

To alleviate the charging problem, first work hard to alleviate the parking difficulty

Walking into The New South Home in Fengxian District, Shanghai, the first feeling is that parking spaces are tight. On the downstairs side of the road and next to the lawn flower beds, except for the fire passage painted with yellow no-stop signs, the rest are planned as parking spaces.

However, on the lawn side of the community center, the reporter saw a row of empty parking spaces in the distance. "This is the new charging special parking space in the community." Yue Tiankuan, owner of Xinnan Homestead and member of the industry committee, said.

"It is difficult to install private piles, and the key problem is that there are not enough parking spaces." Hu Peng, property manager of the community, introduced that XinnanJiayuan is a community completed around 2000, with 70 buildings and more than 2900 residents, planning 1,000 ground parking spaces, 160 underground parking spaces, and parking tension is the norm. With the increasing number of new energy vehicles in the community, the contradiction of insufficient charging facilities is becoming increasingly serious. "From the perspective of safety and standardization, the property company only agrees in principle to install charging piles in underground long-term rental fixed parking spaces, but before individual owners built piles on non-fixed parking spaces on the ground, irregular behaviors such as private security locks, scrambling for parking spaces, and flying line charging occurred from time to time."

To solve the difficulty of charging, we must first work open source. On behalf of the industry committee, Yue Tiankuan coordinated with the neighborhood committee and the property company many times, and proposed a solution - coordinating 10 parking spaces next to the lawn in the center of the community, and introducing public charging service provider Shanghai Sentong Zhida New Energy Technology Service Co., Ltd. to install 10 charging piles. At the same time, more than 100 parking spaces in the shops outside the community will be utilized, and the night tidal parking mode will be adopted, and the monthly vehicles in the community will be provided free of charge.

"At present, the number of new energy vehicles in the community is still less than that of traditional fuel vehicles, and it is difficult to eliminate the phenomenon of occupying charging spaces for a small number of people, and fuel car owners will have opinions." Yue Tiankuan said that after opening up the night sharing parking space, it greatly facilitated the overnight vehicles in the community, and the new energy owners were pleasantly surprised to find that there was no need to worry about the occupation of fuel vehicles, and the buried locks on the charging spaces almost became decorations.

To make up for the gap in electric piles and improve the convenience of charging, public piles in the community are popular

"It used to be charged at a public charging station outside, which was time-consuming and laborious, but now you can charge downstairs and never have to go that far again." According to Mr. Chen, who lives in the Zichenyuan Community in Fengtai District, Beijing, the public pile of the community invested by WanbangXingXing Charging Technology Co., Ltd. is very practical.

According to reports, Star Charging has laid out more than 5,000 public piles in more than 300 communities in Beijing that have no fixed parking spaces and cannot install private piles, and the State Grid has invested in more than 2,000 residential areas in Beijing.

In Shanghai, there are also many cases of replacing private piles with public piles to meet the charging needs of residents in old residential areas. By adopting the method of cooperative operation with property and service fee sharing, Baosteel Eight Villages in Baoshan District, Shanghai introduced Sentong Zhida and installed 6 intelligent public piles. "In the charging app on the mobile phone, you can view the usage of the charging pile, which is much more convenient than charging outside the cell." The owner, Ms. Xu, said.

"Since the company was founded in 2014, we have been committed to private pile installation services. Gradually, we found that it is becoming more and more difficult to install private piles, especially in some old residential areas, parking difficulties have not been solved, and it is impossible to install fixed private piles. Zhang Meng, head of Sentong Zhida, introduced that since 2018, the company has tried to cooperate with the property in the community and build public piles on public parking spaces. The construction cost of the charging pile is paid by the company, and the service fee of about 0.6 yuan per kWh is charged to the user, and it is shared in cooperation with the residential property in demand, which is generally welcomed. Zhang Meng said.

According to the latest statistics of the Ministry of Public Security, by the end of 2021, the number of new energy vehicles in the mainland has reached 7.84 million. "Although the number of private piles built with cars in mainland China is growing rapidly, about half of new energy vehicle owners still do not have charging facilities with their cars." Tong Zongqi, director of the Information Department of the China Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure Promotion Alliance, said that the unified construction of community public piles by operating service providers can not only effectively make up for the gap in private piles, but also facilitate car owners to charge nearby, which is worth advocating.

Set up public fast charging piles and substations to provide more choices

"There is no fixed parking space in the community, there is no way to install charging piles, so I specially bought a replacement tram." At the Weilai Replacement Power Station in Haikou, Hainan Province, Ms. Guo, a citizen, waited for less than 10 minutes, and the commissioner on duty changed the battery for her new energy vehicle. Ms. Guo is a "big car user", going back and forth to Chengmai Old Town twice a day, picking up and dropping off her grandson who is studying in primary school to and from school, "driving for more than 200 days, has run more than 20,000 kilometers, and can also enjoy free electricity exchange services, saving a lot of electricity bills." Ms. Guo said with a smile.

Cai Yuan, deputy general manager of the emerging business department of China Southern Power Grid Hainan Power Grid Company, introduced that starting in April 2021, the company will unite with upstream and downstream enterprises of new energy vehicles to build a "one network" operation model for charging and replacing new energy vehicles. Changbin Road Weilai Substation is the first substation jointly built by Hainan Power Grid and NIO Automobile. "It is estimated that by 2025, the province will build 337,000 charging piles and 430 public charging and replacement power stations, basically realizing the interconnection of most public charging and replacing infrastructure on the island." Cai Yuan said.

"I didn't expect that charging could be as fast as refueling." Mr. Zhang, a citizen of Guangzhou, signed up to experience GAC's EAN's super-double-speed battery technology some time ago, and it took only 4 minutes and 30 seconds for the E-An test car with only 30% of the power left to show charging to 80%. Gu Huinan, general manager of GAC EAN, introduced that by 2025, GAC EIAN will build 2,000 supercharging stations in 300 cities across the country.

The latest statistics of the China Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure Promotion Alliance show that in 2021, 340,000 new public charging piles will be added, and the increase in public charging infrastructure will increase by 89.9% year-on-year. By the end of 2021, 1.147 million public charging piles have been built, an increase of 42.1% year-on-year. Among them, there are 470,000 DC charging piles and 677,000 AC charging piles. In 2021, about 28,300 public charging piles will be added every month. At the same time, the number of substations on the mainland has grown rapidly, from 555 at the end of 2020 to 1298 at the end of 2021.

"Like the power exchange mode, the biggest advantage of a complete public fast charging network and the supercharging station built by car companies is that it is convenient and fast." Industry experts said that with the advancement of this batch of public pile construction, the charging experience of new energy vehicle owners will be effectively improved.

(People's Daily)