The national team’s involvement in charging will no longer hinder the development of new energy!

Electric cars cannot do without charging, but when you charge at a public charging station, you will always encounter various problems. For example, you need to download a bunch of apps on your phone to deal with different operators; when looking for charging stations, there are many densely laid out in some places, but it is difficult to find in other places... These troubling problems are finally being solved.

At the end of 2018, the parent company of charging pile brand Teladian, Trede, issued an announcement stating that its subsidiary Teladian plans to invest 500 million yuan with State Grid Electric Vehicle Service Co., Ltd., China Southern Power Grid Industrial Investment Group, Blue Sky Weiye Clean Energy, and Wanbang Charging to jointly establish Hebei Xiong'an Lianhang Network Technology Co., Ltd.

This news did not cause much response at the time, and the industry had different views on this matter. However, at the Electric Vehicle Hundred People Conference last week, the relevant leaders of the National Energy Administration emphasized this matter in their speeches. The charging authorities have always wanted to "promote the integration and development of national service platforms", and now these four joint ventures are exploring such a path.

Establish a national charging service platform

The name of the joint venture is Hebei Xiong'an Lianhang Network Technology Co., Ltd. Of the 500 million yuan registered capital, State Grid Electric Vehicles contributed 245 million yuan, accounting for 49% of the registered capital; China Southern Power Grid Industrial Investment contributed 100 million yuan, accounting for 20% of the registered capital; Blue Sky Weiye Clean Energy contributed 65 million yuan, accounting for 13% of the registered capital; Teladian contributed 45 million yuan, accounting for 9% of the registered capital; Wanbang Charging contributed 45 million yuan, accounting for 9% of the registered capital. The business goal is to promote the cross-border integration of charging infrastructure and new energy vehicle data.

According to the Charging Alliance, by the end of 2018, there were 300,000 public charging infrastructures in my country, of which Teladian operated 121,000, State Grid operated 57,000, and Xingxing Charging operated 55,000. These companies operated nearly 70% of the public charging piles, and they have an absolute advantage in the charging field. It can be said that it is not difficult for them to achieve their established business goals through cooperation.

The leader of the Energy Bureau said on the spot that as the competent department, it is necessary to promote the integrated development of charging service platforms as always, actively play the role of industry associations such as the Charging Infrastructure Promotion Alliance, and leverage the central fiscal funds on the basis of the information platforms of various operating companies to accelerate the integrated development of national service platforms and provide new energy vehicle users with more intelligent and convenient charging services.

From this perspective, this joint venture may very well be the predecessor of the future national charging service platform.

Solving the charging problem

According to the data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, in 2018, the production and sales of new energy vehicles in China reached 1.27 million and 1.256 million respectively, up 59.9% and 61.7% respectively. By the end of 2018, the number of new energy vehicles in China was 2.61 million, accounting for 1.09% of the total number of vehicles.

According to statistics from the Charging Alliance, there are currently a total of 777,000 charging facilities of various types across the country, so the ratio of cars to charging piles is close to 4 to 1.

Judging from the regional distribution of charging infrastructure, charging piles are mainly distributed in areas with a large number of new energy vehicles such as Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, and there are very few in other areas.

The policy plan of the Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure Development Guidelines (2015-2020) jointly issued by four ministries in 2015 set the ratio of vehicles to charging piles at 1:1. If the policy plan is followed, 4.8 million charging piles will be built nationwide in 2020 to meet the demand of 5 million new energy vehicles.

According to the development goals of new energy vehicles, neither the number nor the distribution of charging facilities can meet the requirements. In other words, 4 million charging piles will be added in the next two years, and they must be distributed reasonably and orderly to meet the requirements of policy planning. Such a task is difficult to accomplish by relying solely on a single charging pile operator. It can only be accomplished through close cooperation and coordinated development.

In the view of "Auto Talk", promoting the construction of charging infrastructure is only part of the joint venture's mission. The more important task is to integrate the various charging pile operators.

In the joint venture, State Grid Electric Vehicle is a subsidiary of State Grid, while State Grid and China Southern Grid are the main providers of electricity resources. Whether it is Teladian or other charging pile operators, they need to purchase electricity from State Grid or China Southern Grid, and then serve electric vehicles and make profits by charging users charging service fees.

After the establishment of the joint venture, the power grid can directly sell electricity to charging pile operators through the joint venture, and the joint venture will handle the settlement. The main work of charging pile operators in the future may be to build piles, operate and maintain them, and provide infrastructure services.

The alliance of these four giants, "Qichebatan" believes that they will not be limited to the current business goals. The development of new energy vehicles is a national strategy, and charging piles are an indispensable part of the development of new energy vehicles. If charging piles reach a certain scale, it will also have an important impact on the energy structure. It is believed that they will focus more on charging networks, energy Internet, and industrial Internet, and finally establish a charging ecosystem.