Charging investigation丨 Charging pile should be installed and used well

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3

Third stop: Guangdong

Charging piles must be installed and used well

——Investigation on the development of electric vehicle charging facilities in Guangdong Province

In Guangdong, nine times out of ten are electric vehicles. In fact, in recent years, Guangdong Province has stood in the first echelon of the mainland electric vehicle development environment due to the continuous realization of the number of charging piles in the country.

Recently, the reporter visited more than a dozen charging stations located in Guangzhou, Shenzhen and other places in Guangdong Province, and found that at present, the construction of the charging network in Guangdong Province is relatively perfect, and there are also problems such as uneven distribution of charging piles and imperfect profit models. Electric vehicle charging piles must be installed and used well.

01

Regional equilibrium must also be "strengthened"

"Driving an electric car in Guangdong for a long distance, don't worry at all." The experience of driving back to his hometown in Hunan during the "Eleventh" National Day has made Shenzhen citizen Liu Zhuowei praise the charging facilities on the highways in Guangdong Province - almost every slightly large-scale service station will be equipped with charging piles, and the "mileage anxiety" of the past has been greatly alleviated.

Liu Zhuowei's experience is due to the strong support of the highway charging network in Guangdong Province. A set of data given by China Southern Power Grid Guangdong Power Grid Company shows that during the National Day in 2021, the charging capacity of the company's subordinate highway charging piles increased by 73.76% year-on-year, and the average daily charging capacity of Guangdong power grid charging and replacing services reached 920,000 kilowatts, a record high. By the end of October 2021, 390 charging stations have been built and put into operation in various highway service areas in Guangdong Province, with a coverage rate of 85%. According to the plan, before January 15, 2022 (Spring Festival), the expressway service area of Guangdong Province will achieve 100% "full coverage" of charging piles.

In fact, at present, the construction of charging facilities in Guangdong Province is still accelerating. According to the "Three-year Implementation Plan for Guangdong Province to Promote the Construction of New Infrastructure (2020-2022)", Guangdong Province continues to promote the construction of intelligent charging piles for electric vehicles, and by 2022, about 180,000 charging piles will be built, and an integrated operation system of orderly charging of transferable loads, V2G (vehicles to the grid), charging, discharging and storage will be established, and the increasingly perfect charging network will provide more powerful support for the development of new energy vehicles.

While the total amount continues to grow, the construction of charging piles in Guangdong Province must be "intensified" in terms of regional distribution balance.

At this point, Li Shengzhou, who has been engaged in the online car industry in Guangzhou for many years, told reporters that in order to avoid the trouble of security checks and waiting for trains at the railway station, passengers often directly take a car from Guangzhou to surrounding cities. The charging network construction in Guangzhou and Shenzhen is quite complete, but like the newly popular tourist city of Foshan, "if you want to recharge, you need to find it well."

The experience of taking a temporary order to go to Yunfu City made Li Shengzhou remember it vividly. He was not familiar with the local area, and the road conditions were unfamiliar and the charging station was far away, which made his Aions electric vehicle almost "drained". Since then, the battery prompt can also travel 30 kilometers to charge, becoming a daily habit that Li Shengzhou "developed".

On the annual distribution map of electric vehicle charging piles in Guangdong Province, the characteristics of uneven construction of charging piles are more obvious. While the scale of annual development has increased rapidly, the regional differences in charging pile construction in Guangdong Province have been expanding - charging piles are mainly concentrated in the Pearl River Delta region, accounting for about 95% of the total number of the province, and more than two-thirds of the provincial area of other regions share the remaining 5%. From local construction to regional layout, the development of charging piles needs to be more standardized, balanced and systematic.

02

The power exchange mode improves the energy replenishment scheme of electric vehicles

Master Hu, who is also engaged in the online ride-hailing industry, generally chooses to charge the nearest charge when the electricity price is cheap at noon. Through the fast charging mode, the Xiaopeng G3 electric vehicle he drives, the power increase from 10% to 80% only takes about 1 hour. Have lunch near the charging station, chat with other drivers for a few more words, and the electricity will be charged.

Always use fast charging to charge, will the cost be high? Master Hu laughed and said, "In addition to private cars and charging piles with parking spaces, now everyone uses fast charging", not to mention, at the same time in the same station, the difference between the cost of fast charging and slow charging per hour is only 0.2 yuan or so, "the time saved is more cost-effective to receive two orders"!

However, when encountering temporary orders, you need to run a small long distance across the city, and the charging time of more than an hour is still a bit delayed. Master Hu suggested, "If you can launch ultra-fast charging or popularize power station replacement as soon as possible, it will be better." ”

In recent years, the electric vehicle replacement mode that can effectively eliminate the "mileage anxiety" of electric vehicle owners has become a hot word in the industry. By directly replacing the battery, the power exchange mode is receiving more and more attention while increasing the cost of use while significantly reducing the time to replenish energy and improving the safety level of electric vehicles.

In May 2018, Shenzhen Nanshan District built the country's first substation for individual users, and it only takes about 20 minutes for certain electric vehicle models to be "full of blood resurrection". On November 5, 2021, WEILAI Automobile cooperated with Sinopec to land the first batch of "car power exchange" business in Guangdong, creating a comprehensive energy service station integrating refueling, charging and replacing, and photovoltaic power generation, of which the battery reserves of the substation reached 13, which can meet the demand for 312 times of power exchange per day.

It is understood that at present, the "car power exchange" business has been in Guangdong Province, Shenzhen Shajing integrated energy service station and the Pearl River Delta Ring Expressway Dongguan section of the Huangjiang South, north two integrated energy service stations simultaneously landed, the future will be further promoted and popularized.

It's a bit difficult to operate charging stations individually

Profit model is the key to the development of the industrial chain. Operating a charging station not only requires a large amount of investment in the early construction, but also faces greater challenges in station site selection, wiring transformation, operation management and other aspects. At present, the development of the industrial chain of charging piles in the mainland is not yet mature, and it is not easy to make a profit.

In a charging station located in the Nanhai District of Foshan City, the reporter met Zhou Sheng, who was selecting a location for the charging station. Zhou Sheng has many years of experience in electric vehicle driving, so he decided that opening a charging station can make money and use it himself, which is a good deal.

However, with the site selection inspection again and again, the shopping malls and office buildings that once favored him were gradually excluded from the candidates by Zhou Sheng.

"The mall is not made by individuals." Zhou Sheng said that after many field investigations, he found that the same area, the charging station in the downtown area needs to pay a high rent. At the same time, not to mention that the power grid access is a big expense, just to say that many shopping malls, office buildings parking lots will be closed at night, which makes those who hope to enjoy the preferential policies of night valley electricity owners discouraged, the profit margin of the power station will also be greatly reduced.

What is even more difficult is that for many shopping malls, the provision of electric vehicle charging services is only a supporting service, and the service fee share agreed with the charging station operator is far less than the parking fee, so instead of a few charging piles, it is better to vacate a few more parking spaces.

For the operation of charging stations, Liang Zhanpei, who has two years of operating experience, feels more deeply. The charging station he operates is located in Renhe Xingxing Village, Baiyun District, Guangzhou, close to Guangzhou Baiyun Airport, and the target customers are electric vehicle owners and surrounding households who deliver people to and from the airport. In the early stage of operation of the station, the maximum monthly electricity sales can reach 300,000 kWh, plus the monthly insurance fee of 40 to 50 cars (that is, the parking fee is paid through the monthly settlement method, mainly from the night slow charging customer), and the monthly income is more than 100,000.

However, due to the impact of the new crown pneumonia epidemic, Guangzhou Baiyun Airport has not only been closed for a long time many times, but also greatly reduced the flow of people. In recent months, Liang Zhanpei's charging station has only sold 123,000 kWh of electricity per month, and there are only 19 fixed customers per month, and the original 5-year investment plan cannot be realized.

Liang Zhanpei said that the shrinking operation under the epidemic is also related to the geographical location of the power station, which is relatively far from the road. "Another charging station on the same side road but at the intersection, because of its convenient location and the ability of electric buses to pass, is still able to maintain a good level of profit." Liang Zhanpei believes that the development of electric vehicles is the trend of the times, and he is also looking for his second charging station place, "this time we must earn money back."

04

The installation system of charging piles in the community needs to be improved urgently

It is not easy to operate an electric vehicle charging station, and it is not an easy task to install a charging pile for your own electric vehicle.

On July 18, 2020, the "Leadership Message Board" column of the People's Network published a message to Ma Xingrui, governor of Guangdong Province, who said that he lived in the Yujing Peninsula Community in Yuanzhou Town, Boluo County, Huizhou City, because he bought a new energy vehicle and wanted to install a charging pile on his parking space, but was rejected by the community property for various reasons, hoping that the government could help solve it. Such a situation is not uncommon even in Guangdong Province, which is recognized as the leading development environment in the country.

According to the relevant requirements of the Notice of the National Development and Reform Commission, the National Energy Administration, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, and the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development on Accelerating the Construction of Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure in Residential Areas, the owners' committee (or the management unit authorized by the owners' assembly) shall, in principle, agree and provide necessary assistance to the acts or requirements of the owner of the fixed parking space or the long-term lessee (lease period of one year or more) to build charging infrastructure. After receiving the user's application for the installation of the pile for personal use, the property should be handled within 5 working days, and if you do not agree, you need to explain the specific reasons in writing. According to the relevant person in charge of the electric vehicle field of the Guangdong Guangzhou Power Supply Bureau of the Southern Grid, whether the charging pile can be built in the community is affected by many factors. Some communities have a strong subjective will, but because they have been built for many years, they are "dragged down" by problems such as insufficient backward voltage of power facilities and insufficient space to maintain the safe distance of power equipment; although some communities have modern facilities, property companies will also use various reasons to refuse the owner's installation application for various reasons due to fire safety and other factors.

In order to promote the real implementation of the relevant policies of the charging pile in the community, the above-mentioned person in charge suggested that the relevant departments should further clarify the responsibilities of each entity, and gradually improve the construction of facilities such as fire protection in the parking lot of the community, so as to dispel the concerns of the community property company, and then meet the better car experience of electric vehicle owners. At the same time, we should further improve the charging pile industry standardization system, clarify the industry access threshold, and guide the scientific and orderly development of the industry.