Charging pile "new infrastructure" is expected to usher in explosive growth

As one of the seven major areas of new infrastructure, new energy vehicle charging piles are pressing the "fast forward button" and ushering in explosive growth.

On April 14, the State Grid launched a new round of charging pile construction, planning to invest 2.7 billion yuan in charging pile construction and add 78,000 charging piles. The projects are distributed in 24 provinces including Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Hunan, and Qinghai, covering public, dedicated, logistics, sanitation, community, and port shore power.

Previously, China Southern Power Grid also disclosed that it will invest 25.1 billion yuan in the construction of charging facilities in the next four years, build 150 large-scale centralized charging stations and 380,000 charging piles. Based on this calculation, the two major power grids will invest 27.8 billion yuan to build 458,000 charging piles and other charging facilities.

As one of the seven areas of new infrastructure, new energy vehicle charging piles are characterized by large investments and long supply chains, and are an important guarantee for the development of the new energy vehicle industry. In fact, charging piles are not just independent and physical, but also involve "new infrastructure" fields such as 5G, big data, and industrial Internet. Smart charging networks are also part of smart cities.

As early as 2015, the General Office of the State Council issued the "Guiding Opinions on Accelerating the Construction of Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure", which proposed that we should strive to basically build a moderately advanced, car-pile-matching, intelligent and efficient charging infrastructure system by 2020 to meet the charging needs of more than 5 million electric vehicles. According to the National Energy Administration's "Guidelines for the Development of Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure (2015-2020)", by 2020, my country will add more than 12,000 centralized charging and swapping stations and more than 4.8 million decentralized charging piles, including 500,000 public charging piles and 4.3 million private charging piles, to meet the charging needs of 5 million electric vehicles nationwide.

At present, public charging piles have reached the planning requirements ahead of schedule, but the number of private charging piles is still far from enough. According to data from the China Charging Alliance, as of January 2020, 531,000 public charging piles have been built nationwide, reaching the requirement of a 1:1 ratio of cars to piles; while there are 712,000 private charging piles, with a car-to-pile ratio of about 3.5:1, which is still a long way from the planned requirement of a 1:1 ratio of cars to piles. With the rapid increase in the number of new energy vehicles, the imbalance problem of the car-to-pile ratio will become more prominent, and it is particularly important to accelerate the construction of charging piles.

At the press conference of the Joint Prevention and Control Mechanism of the State Council held on April 9, Cai Ronghua, deputy director of the Industrial Development Department of the National Development and Reform Commission, said that it is expected that the investment will be around 10 billion yuan this year, with about 200,000 new public charging piles, more than 400,000 new private charging piles, and 48,000 public charging stations. Sun Guangqi, director of the Economic Construction Department of the Ministry of Finance, also said that they will study and optimize the reward and subsidy policy for the construction of charging facilities, further mobilize local enthusiasm, speed up the construction process, and change the situation of more cars and fewer charging piles as soon as possible, creating a good environment for the consumption of new energy vehicles.

Industry insiders believe that the two major power grids, as central enterprises, are focusing on charging piles, on the one hand, as a "political task" brought about by the "new infrastructure". The current drop in oil prices and the decline in sales of new energy vehicles have made it more difficult for charging piles to achieve profitability, which makes it more urgent for the two major power grids to undertake the task of investing to stimulate domestic demand. On the other hand, compared with other state-owned enterprises, the construction of charging piles and the popularization of new energy vehicles are more closely related to the business of the two major power grids, which can promote the development of the power industry. Therefore, they themselves have motivation.

In addition to the two major power grids, many places have recently released corresponding plans for the construction of charging piles. For example, Tianjin announced that it will build 40 new bus-specific charging stations and 12 new high-speed service area charging stations within the year, and 800 new charging piles in 100 communities across the city. In addition, local subsidy policies are constantly being released. For example, Shanghai announced that it will implement a new charging pile subsidy policy from May 1, 2020. Existing charging piles in residential areas are encouraged to be transformed into intelligent ones by adding energy routers, etc., and financial subsidies will be given at a rate of 200 yuan per pile. Subsidies will be given to properties that support the sharing and transformation of self-use (dedicated) piles, with a subsidy standard of 500 yuan per pile.

It can be foreseen that under the impact of the epidemic, the "new infrastructure" will continue to exert its strength and play a role in stabilizing the economy and employment, and the construction of charging piles is expected to usher in explosive growth.