Government work report mentions charging piles again, but this wind口 market still has five major problems to solve

This year's Government Work Report proposed increasing the number of charging piles and battery swapping stations. This is the second time charging piles have been mentioned in the Government Work Report.

　　In 2020, charging piles were included in the new infrastructure plan and mentioned in the Government Work Report, ushering in a new policy boom and opening up a new development channel.

　　Li Lili, deputy director of the New Energy Vehicle and Energy Storage Institute of Tsinghua Sichuan Energy Internet Research Institute, said in an exclusive interview with Jiemian News that after the introduction of the new infrastructure policy, the importance attached to the development of charging piles has significantly increased at all levels, from relevant national ministries and commissions to local governments, bringing new opportunities for the development of charging piles.

　　To date, relevant national ministries and commissions have issued a number of guiding documents on charging piles, but local governments need to play a leading role in specific implementation and establish a multi-departmental coordination mechanism.

　　“There are five issues that local governments need to prioritize at the decision-making level.” Li Lili told Jiemian News.

　　First, the uneven regional distribution of charging infrastructure is a major current problem.

　　Li Lili said that in cities with rapid promotion of new energy vehicles, there is a problem of local surplus of charging facilities in key areas.

　　According to a comparative analysis of public charging stations and gas stations in limited-license cities such as Beijing, Guangzhou, and Shanghai, the number of public charging stations in these cities has reached about three times that of gas stations, with greater coverage density but overall low utilization, resulting in periodic and localized surpluses.

　　However, in some smaller cities, the deployment of charging infrastructure is very weak, and it is necessary to strengthen infrastructure development and increase the intensity of deployment. “In second-tier and below cities, the number of public charging stations is far lower than the number of gas stations. The lower the city level, the greater the gap between the number of public charging stations and gas stations,” Li Lili said.

　　The second problem is that the supporting construction of charging piles in residential communities still faces many challenges.

　　Li Lili said that based on the previous experience of promoting "fiber to the home" construction in China, this requires unified promotion by local governments. Due to different situations such as direct power supply and non-direct power supply by power grid enterprises, classified measures need to be adopted to promote this.

　　Li Lili told Jiemian News that there are many advantages to direct power supply from the power grid in residential areas. For example, residents can enjoy a unified residential electricity Price, the property management company cannot increase the Price, and the electricity Price level is lower than the general industrial and commercial electricity Price.

　　Currently, power grid companies have standardized service levels and high digitalization levels, allowing online electricity bill inquiries and online payments, with timely repairs and responses to failures, resulting in high overall user satisfaction.

　　“Therefore, in recent years, many local governments have been actively promoting the conversion of non-direct power supply communities to direct power supply by the power grid. For example, Hainan has been vigorously promoting the transformation of meter reading to individual households.”

　　However, as the implementing entity, power grid companies need the cooperation of property management companies and the support of owners to carry out power capacity expansion and upgrades for charging piles. At the same time, during the transformation process, it may be necessary to obtain management and permits from housing construction, civil air defense, fire protection, and greening departments. These aspects still lack clear policy, mechanism processes, and standards.

　　For communities that do not receive direct power supply from power grid companies, the difficulty of supporting the construction of charging piles will be even greater.

　　Li Lili explained that such communities often have power facilities invested by developers, with property management companies specifically responsible for the management and operation and maintenance of power facilities. Due to investment return issues, developers or property management companies often lack the initiative to invest in power transformation and installation of charging piles for users.

　　In addition, due to the large number and dispersion of developers and property management companies, if they carry out power transformation on their own, how to ensure the standardization of transformation and establish a reasonable investment recovery mechanism are huge challenges in supervision.

　　Li Lili suggested that for communities that do not receive direct power supply from the power grid, it is recommended to refer to the experience of promoting "meter reading to individual households" in various places and to study including the power transformation of charging pile supporting facilities in communities that do not have direct power supply from the power grid in the support scope of "meter reading to individual households" transformation in various places, with power grid companies uniformly providing power transformation and power supply services.

　　He believes that this can accelerate the solution to the problem of power transformation for charging piles in communities without direct power supply from the power grid, and also help promote the application of smart orderly charging and V2G and other new charging models in residential areas, achieving efficient interaction between electric vehicles and the power grid.

　　“Overall, whether it is direct power supply from the power grid or communities without direct power supply from the power grid, solving the problem of power transformation for charging piles requires unified promotion by local governments, especially the need to play a good role of grassroots administrative units such as housing construction departments and neighborhood committees in various places, requiring property management companies to support and cooperate with power grid companies in implementing relevant power transformation, forming clear supporting standards and implementation processes for community charging pile transformation, and forming a sustainable and long-term development mechanism for community charging pile construction,” Li Lili said.

　　The third issue that requires government coordination is the planning of public charging station sites.

　　“Currently, domestic administrative approvals have fully delegated power to public charging infrastructure. Basically, as long as it is built according to national and local standards, it can participate in the charging market, and the entry threshold is not high,” Li Lili told Jiemian News reporter.

　　According to him, the construction of charging facilities on existing land resources or parking lot resources does not require additional planning approvals, construction permits, or construction permits.

　　However, he believes that government departments need to further strengthen their efforts in quality and safety supervision to ensure the service quality and production safety of charging stations.

　　Li Lili pointed out that in the absence of effective supervision, there will be situations where broken piles are not managed; in some areas with Price wars, due to the lack of profit guarantees for enterprises, it is difficult to have continuous resource input into improving charging services and experience, and it is easy to have a situation where inferior products drive out good products.

　　“In the past two years, Beijing and Shanghai have introduced charging pile service quality standard evaluations based on government supervision platforms, and stations with high scores can receive more subsidies. These mechanisms have played a good role in the orderly development of the market,” Li Lili said.

　　Li Lili suggested that during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, local governments should strengthen the guidance and constraints of planning.

　　He believes that charging infrastructure has public attributes. Without planning and layout constraints and relying solely on market construction, irrational or blind investment will occur, which is not conducive to industry development.

　　The fourth problem raised by Li Lili is that the government needs to pay more attention to the supporting issue of charging piles in the logistics and freight sector.

　　Charging facilities are of various types. From a national perspective, in the publicly funded service areas, the charging supporting facilities for buses, passenger transport, and sanitation vehicles are relatively complete, with a good land guarantee mechanism, but in the logistics and freight sector, there is still a great need for the government to increase coordination and support.

　　Li Lili stated that there are many logistics companies, a high degree of marketization, and complex ownership of transport vehicles, "Different vehicle situations require different management, and charging conditions also vary."

　　In addition, some logistics trucks are parked in temporary locations, such as city dump trucks that need to move with construction projects, requiring changes of location about every 1-2 years. Due to the lack of long-term land use and operational guarantees, plus the long investment return period, logistics companies find it difficult to invest in supporting charging piles for the long term, and third-party social entities face significant business risks in building charging stations.

　　Li Lili suggested that local governments should consider how to guarantee land resources. Considering the mobility of vehicle use, effective regional planning should be implemented to better revitalize existing land resources and provide more certain land and power resource guarantees for professional charging operation enterprises to build public charging stations or for logistics companies to build their own charging stations.

　　Li Lili's fifth point concerned charging pile subsidies. For security facilities and markets with poor operating efficiency, local governments have yet to introduce targeted support policies regarding land use, investment, and operation.

　　"For charging pile markets in expressways, towns, and small and medium-sized cities where social capital is unwilling to invest, the guiding and backup role of policy subsidies has not been well utilized." Li Lili stated.

　　He believes that local governments should introduce targeted subsidy measures for security charging facilities, strengthen the accuracy and differentiation of subsidies, guide social capital to make forward-looking investments in security facilities, and achieve infrastructure first.

　　Li Lili pointed out that charging infrastructure needs to be secured first to meet user needs. Only then will people have confidence in buying new energy vehicles, and the consumption environment and consumer confidence for new energy vehicles can be established.