The safety of the replacement power station should also be "full"

Original title: The safety risks of the replacement power station cannot be ignored

Text | Reporter Lu Qixiu

In the field of electric vehicles, the focus of the power exchange industry has always been on the issue of standard unification, and safety risks are often ignored. In fact, as a "warehouse" for large-scale battery storage, the safety guarantee of the substation should be paid more attention to by the industry.

Sudden fire at the substation

Recently, the Aodong New Energy Yangzhuang Substation located in Shijingshan District, Beijing, suddenly caught fire, burning two lithium batteries for taxi batteries at the scene, but fortunately did not cause casualties.

It is understood that the accident replacement power station was invested and built by Aodong New Energy, the head enterprise of the power exchange industry. After the incident, Aodong told reporters that it should be the battery in the charging cabin itself short circuit, thermal runaway in the static state, because the replacement power station was in non-business hours at that time, although the station's optical fiber temperature measurement technology management system issued a battery temperature abnormal warning in time, but the battery had produced an open flame when the staff arrived.

It is understood that the Aodong New Energy Yangzhuang Substation mainly serves the taxis of BAIC New Energy, the battery that has thermal runaway is carried by the BAIC EU 300 taxi, the battery cell is provided by ningde times, and the battery pack is designed and produced by the BAIC Group itself. At present, the replacement power station has been shut down for rectification, and the cause of the accident needs to be further investigated.

It is understood that Aodong New Energy is the earliest batch of operators engaged in electric vehicle replacement business in China, and has established a service network in 26 cities across the country, with a cumulative service replacement volume of more than 50,000 trams. Aodong New Energy has also cooperated with 16 automobile companies such as FAW, Dongfeng, Changan, SAIC, BAIC and Dongfeng Nissan to jointly develop more than 30 power-changing models.

According to data from the China Charging Alliance, as of March this year, the number of substations nationwide was 1451, an increase of 140% year-on-year, of which 915 were built by Weilai and 429 were built by Aodong New Energy, accounting for 29.6%.

Yang Ye, senior vice president of Aodong New Energy, recently revealed that the company has completed the B round of financing, and at present, the company is in a new round of financing and preparing for listing.

Enterprises have increased the layout of the replacement power station

In October 2021, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued the "Notice on Launching the Pilot Work on the Application of the New Energy Vehicle Power Replacement Model", arranging 11 pilot cities for power replacement nationwide, planning to promote more than 100,000 power replacement vehicles and build more than 1,000 new power stations. This has been interpreted by the industry as a policy signal that the construction of the replacement power station is about to usher in an explosive period.

Subsequently, the substation operation service providers, vehicle companies, power battery manufacturers, and even petroleum and petrochemical companies have increased the layout of the power exchange field. By 2025, Aodong New Energy plans to operate more than 10,000 substations nationwide and provide power replacement services for more than 10 million new energy vehicles; NIO has set a goal of achieving a total of 1,300 substations; Geely and Lifan have joined forces to set up a joint venture to complete 5,000 substations by the end of 2025. In January this year, CATL also entered the power exchange track, released the power exchange service brand EVO GO Lexing power exchange, and is expected to invest in the construction of 30 replacement power stations in Xiamen by the end of this year.

Sinopec also made it clear that during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, it will plan and lay out 5,000 charging and replacing power stations.

"Power exchange is a trillion-dollar market-scale track that needs more player support and entry." Yang Ye believes that "the addition of more participants will allow the power exchange model to get more attention from policies, industries and capitals, which is conducive to the accelerated development of the industry and provides users with a better user experience." ”

Safety is a prerequisite for the industry to take off

The influx of enterprises has boosted the development of the power exchange industry. Guotai Junan analysts expect that by the end of 2025, the mainland is expected to build 22,100 substations, forming an equipment market space of 38.3 billion yuan; by 2030, the number of substations is expected to further increase to 88,300, forming a 109.1 billion yuan equipment market space.

Safety is the premise of industrial development. Previously, due to the advantages of centralized battery management, the replacement power station was considered by the industry to have the characteristics of high safety and high life. It is understood that the battery in the substation "constant temperature, constant humidity, unified magnification" under the conditions of centralized charging, operating enterprises based on a large number of historical operating data, the battery performance, health status of real-time monitoring and safety physical examination, through the charging process of subtle changes to the battery "auscultation pulse", such as found data abnormalities, can be timely the problem battery out, on-site processing or back to the factory maintenance. The battery safety hazards are discovered in the early stage in time to effectively avoid the occurrence of fire and explosion accidents.

However, the accident of the power station replacement has once again sounded the alarm for the industry. "Lithium batteries are not absolutely safe. If the replacement station of large-scale storage batteries catches fire, it will cause greater danger. Some insiders said, "The thermal runaway problem of power batteries is an industry problem." At present, the power exchange model is in the early stage of development, the industrial chain is long and quite complex, if a safety accident occurs, it is difficult to define the responsibility of battery manufacturers, vehicle companies, or operating units. In addition, the repeated installation of the vehicle chassis and the repeated disassembly and installation of the power battery also put forward high requirements for the robustness and durability of the chassis. The industry insider further pointed out that the focus of the safety management of the replacement power station is to prejudge in advance, regular maintenance, and rapid response to ensure that there are staff on site and sudden accidents can be dealt with in a timely manner.

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Produced by | China Energy News (ID:cnenergy)

Trainee Editor | Li Zemin

Edit | Li Huiying