Achieve "full coverage of charging stations in counties"

Open the charging pile to the countryside "blocking point"

"The closer to home, the more difficult to find the charging pile" - many new energy owners found that the city charging pile, power station Settings are more common, and in the county, rural, new energy vehicle charging is not a small problem, especially the public charging pile often in the county center to find.

 On May 17, the National Development and Reform Commission and the National Energy Administration released the "Implementation Opinions on Accelerating the construction of charging Infrastructure to Better Support New energy Vehicles to the Countryside and Rural Revitalization" (hereinafter referred to as the "Implementation Opinions"), which proposed to moderately advance the construction of charging infrastructure and optimize the purchase and use environment of new energy vehicles. To achieve "full coverage of charging stations in counties" and "full coverage of charging piles in townships".

Where is the "blocking point" of charging pile going to the countryside? What will China do? Our reporter conducted an interview.

The lower the sink, the fewer charging piles

  Chen Honghong, who lives in Beichen Village, Zhanhua District, Binzhou City, Shandong province, has to go to work four kilometers away every day. She bought a new energy car last year to facilitate commuting and picking up her children. Car companies have helped install charging piles at home, but her company does not currently have infrastructure such as charging piles. "If you're driving out on the weekend, you have to charge it at home in advance, otherwise it's hard to find public charging stations."

In recent years, China's new energy vehicle consumption has grown rapidly. By the end of 2022, there were about 13.1 million new energy vehicles in China, more than half of the global total. The supporting charging equipment is also increasingly perfect. By the end of last year, China had built an automobile charging infrastructure system that includes 5.21 million charging piles, the largest number in the world, the largest radiation area, and the most comprehensive service vehicles.

      However, the distribution of charging facilities is very uneven. In China's large and medium-sized cities, shopping malls and scenic spots have installed a considerable number of charging piles. On the extending expressway, the service area has also been equipped with charging piles, and a number of change stations are distributed along the way. However, to the county, the owner can often only find a small number of public charging piles in the underground garage of the central business area and near the scenic spot with large traffic flow. Then in the countryside, public charging piles basically "disappeared", and only some car-buying families installed private charging piles in their own courtyards.

 New energy vehicles are driving in the countryside, and the demand for public charging piles is increasing simultaneously. Some places have begun to extend the construction of charging piles to the suburbs, counties and townships. Zhanhua District of Binzhou City distributed 14 smart parking lots within the jurisdiction, and installed 295 new energy vehicle charging piles to achieve parking recognition, real-time monitoring, intelligent charging, timing display and other functions. In response to a new round of new energy vehicles to the countryside policy call.

"At present, the construction of rural charging facilities is still in its infancy. There is still a lack of effective investment in county charging infrastructure construction, which cannot form effective support for electric vehicles to the countryside, and also restricts the release of the consumption potential of new energy vehicles in rural areas." China Electricity Council deputy secretary-general Liu Yongdong told reporters.

Charging piles need to be synchronized to the countryside

Data released by the China Charging Alliance show that in 2022, the incremental ratio of piles and vehicles in China's charging infrastructure will be 1:2.7, which is a big gap from the goal of 1:1. In particular, the serious shortage of charging piles in counties and towns has become a "blocking point" and "pain point" that restricts the purchase and use of new energy vehicles in rural areas.

What is the difficulty of building charging infrastructure in rural areas?

"Compared to cities, the utilization rate of charging infrastructure in rural areas is low, and it is difficult to recover investment. At present, the average utilization rate of the entire charging facilities industry is less than 10%, and the utilization rate of public charging facilities in counties and rural areas is subject to the number of new energy vehicles, and the utilization rate is significantly lower than the average level, which is difficult to attract operators to invest in construction." Liu Yongdong said.

"On the other hand, the proportion of new energy vehicles in rural areas using home charging is relatively higher than that in cities, and owners often need to use public charging piles to recharge electricity in special scenarios." This results in the dislocation of the spatial and temporal layout of public charging facilities in counties and townships, which is prone to a large number of idle times during the normal period and cannot meet the charging demand during holidays." Liu Yongdong explained that this has also affected the enthusiasm of county and township areas to build public charging piles.

The executive meeting of The State Council held on May 5 pointed out that the rural new energy vehicle market has a broad space, and accelerating the construction of charging infrastructure is not only conducive to promoting the purchase and use of new energy vehicles, releasing the potential of rural consumption, but also conducive to the development of new forms of business such as rural tourism, adding new impetus to rural revitalization.

According to the "Research on Electric Vehicle Travel in Rural China" released by the China Electric Vehicle 100 Association, it is estimated that by 2030, there will be nearly 160 cars in rural China, with a total of more than 70 million cars. Open the charging pile to the countryside "blocking point", China's new energy vehicles will usher in new opportunities.

Easy to go, easy to buy, affordable to use

Charging stations "full coverage of counties" and charging piles "full coverage of townships" - this goal determined by the "Implementation Opinions" has attracted widespread attention from consumers. "After driving new energy vehicles back home don't worry about charging things" "New energy vehicles are getting cheaper and easier to charge, you can consider buying one"... Many owners said.

How is the goal achieved?

Make good planning and layout. It is understood that the state supports local governments to carry out county and township public charging network planning in accordance with the actual situation, and do a good job of connecting with territorial spatial planning and distribution network planning. In terms of the construction of centralized public charging stations that car owners are most concerned about, public charging facilities will be prioritized in county and township enterprises and institutions, commercial buildings, transportation hubs (stations), service areas (stations) along highways and other places, and extended to relocation centralized resettlement areas and rural tourism key villages. In combination with the development of rural self-driving Tours, the construction of charging piles along highways and gas stations with conditions is accelerated.

Innovate the construction, operation and maintenance model. The "Implementation Opinions" clearly encourage conditional localities to introduce special support policies for the construction and operation of public charging infrastructure in rural areas. We will use local government special bonds and other tools to support the construction of qualified highways and ordinary national and provincial trunk road service areas (stations), public tram stations and car passenger stations. Overall consideration should be given to the construction of village-level charging networks and the development of transmission and distribution grids, and support efforts should be increased such as land security, the construction and transformation of supporting power grids should be carried out to enhance the support and security capacity of rural power grids. By 2030, centralized charging and replacing facilities with two-part electricity prices will be exempted from demand (capacity) electricity charges, relax the constraints on the efficiency of distribution network construction investment of power grid enterprises, and fully include the recovery of transmission and distribution electricity prices.

Liu Yongdong believes that the "Implementation Opinions" put forward a series of targeted policy measures around the construction of charging infrastructure, the promotion of new energy vehicles and the strengthening of publicity services, so that new energy vehicles can be "accessible, convenient to buy and affordable", which will play a strong role in promoting.

Meng Wei, spokesman for the National Development and Reform Commission, said the market for new energy vehicles in rural areas is broad. "We hope that through the introduction of the Implementation Opinions, we can further stimulate the consumption potential of rural areas, guide rural residents to choose more green travel, and add new vitality to promoting the comprehensive revitalization of rural areas."