Charging network is the key basic support for the integration and interaction between new energy vehicles and power grid.

Text/Liu Yongdong

In November 2023, the National Development and Reform Commission issued the "National peak carbon dioxide emissions Pilot Construction Plan", clearly proposing to vigorously promote new energy vehicles, strengthen the construction of green transportation infrastructure, and improve supporting facilities such as charging piles and power stations. In the reference indicators for the construction of pilot cities in peak carbon dioxide emissions, the Plan includes a series of specific indicators, such as the market penetration rate of new energy vehicles, the number of new energy vehicles, and the proportion of new modes and new formats, such as integrated energy stations, microgrid, and integration of source, grid, load and storage.

The promotion and realization of the goal of "double carbon" cannot be separated from the two-wheel drive of new energy power generation and new energy vehicles. According to the data of the International Renewable Energy Agency, China has become the fastest developing country of new energy in the world, and is the largest country in the utilization of renewable energy such as wind power, photovoltaic and hydropower. At the same time, new energy vehicles, as the main direction of global automobile industry transformation and upgrading and green development, are also the strategic choice for the high-quality development of China’s automobile industry. At present, China has become the world’s largest producer and exporter of new energy vehicles. Especially in the current economic environment, new energy vehicles are also a strong engine for industrial upgrading and consumption growth.

Charging infrastructure is the key to the next large-scale development of electric vehicles.

As a national strategic emerging industry, new energy vehicles have developed rapidly in recent years, and China’s electric vehicle industry chain has also achieved a global leading edge. With the power battery becoming stronger and stronger, the safety performance is getting better and better, and the sales of electric vehicles in China have also ushered in a stage of rapid growth. In contrast, the increment of charging infrastructure obviously lags behind the growth of electric vehicles. According to the data released by China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, from January to November 2023, the sales volume of new energy vehicles was 8.304 million; According to the data of China Charging Alliance, the charging infrastructure has increased by 3.054 million units, and the increment ratio of vehicles and piles is 2.7: 1.

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At present, the problem of imperfect, unreasonable, unbalanced and irregular charging infrastructure has greatly affected the charging experience of electric vehicle users, which has become one of the main reasons affecting the purchase of potential customers of new energy vehicles and a constraint to the large-scale development of new energy vehicles.

Focusing on the large-scale development of new energy vehicles in the next step, the new power system needs to fully consider the integration and development of new energy vehicles and power systems. On the one hand, as a new large load, disorderly charging and peak charging of large-scale electric vehicle charging piles will further aggravate the peak-valley characteristics of power grid load, which will make the power grid unbearable. In Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Chengdu and other cities, many old communities have been unable to install charging piles due to power capacity, safety and other reasons. Public charging piles are also facing technical upgrades such as high power and intelligent operation and maintenance. The original equipment and technology and extensive management mode are difficult to support the development needs of large-scale electric vehicles. On the other hand, the massive charging and discharging resources of electric vehicles will become an important distributed energy storage in the new power system, which will play a role in peak shaving and valley filling and become a friendly charging infrastructure.

Only the charging network can support the growth of large-scale electric vehicles.

In June 2023, the executive meeting of the State Council pointed out that the development advantages of new energy vehicles should be further consolidated and expanded, and a high-quality charging infrastructure system should be built. The General Office of the State Council issued the Guiding Opinions on Further Building a High-quality Charging Infrastructure System (Guo Ban Fa [2023] No.19), and made specific arrangements for the construction of charging infrastructure: by 2030, a high-quality charging infrastructure system with wide coverage, moderate scale, reasonable structure and perfect functions will be basically built, which will strongly support the development of new energy automobile industry and effectively meet the people’s travel and charging needs; Build a charging network with a city-like, highway-like and village-like layout.

There is an essential difference between "charging pile" and "charging network". The charging pile is a simple charging device, while the charging network is a deeply integrated intelligent charging system, which emphasizes the interconnection of energy and data. To solve the charging problem of promoting the "last mile" of new energy vehicles, in fact, we need to build a charging network instead of a charging pile.

The data and information interaction between the charging pile and the vehicle is simple, while the data and information interaction between the charging network and the vehicle, energy and people is deep, which can detect deeper and lower-level physical data and energy data. It is an industrial Internet application with strong scientific and technological properties.

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Through the charging network, the confidence of car owners will be effectively enhanced, and the charging infrastructure will become a strong network to escort their travel; Through the charging network, the charging infrastructure can become an important part of smart cities and smart transportation; Through the charging network, charging big data can become an important support for serving car owners and ensuring charging safety.

Only the charging network can build a tower to develop the interaction between vehicles and networks.

The construction of charging infrastructure will go through three development stages. The first is the "charging era", with charging piles as the representative, focusing on meeting the charging needs of electric vehicles, meeting the charging needs of millions of electric vehicles and realizing large-scale charging; Now is the "electricity age". With the number of new energy vehicles in China exceeding 10 million, the charging network+energy storage network+microgrid will be deeply integrated and become a new carrier of new power system, which extends a variety of scenarios, including orderly charging, microgrid photovoltaic, mobile energy storage, step energy storage, aggregate electricity sales, peak shaving and frequency modulation, vehicle-grid interaction, virtual power plant, carbon trading, etc. The future will be the "internet age". When the number of new energy vehicles reaches 50 million, the data value may be more prominent. The industry will usher in the "station+terminal" as the link, deeply linking vehicles, batteries, energy and users, and become one of the largest application scenarios of the industrial Internet.

Recently, the "Implementation Opinions on Strengthening the Integration and Interaction between New Energy Vehicles and Power Grid" jointly issued by the National Development and Reform Commission and the National Energy Administration clearly pointed out that new energy vehicles are connected to the power supply network through charging and replacing facilities, and a two-way interactive system of information flow and energy flow between new energy and power supply network can effectively exert the flexible adjustment ability of power batteries as controllable loads or mobile energy storage, and provide important support for the efficient and economical operation of new power systems.

The charging network can realize queuing charging, reservation charging and valley charging through energy dispatching, and realize peak clipping and valley filling through bidirectional charging and discharging. On the premise of meeting the needs of users, the flexibility of the power grid will be improved, which will help the peak regulation of the power grid, and at the same time, the abandoned wind, water and light will be eliminated, so as to realize the charging of new energy vehicles with new energy.

The charging network is composed of four layers: equipment network, Internet of Things, energy network and data network, which is in line with the balanced layout of "five charging networks" (bus, public, residential area, enterprise park and logistics) in the urban charging scene. The charging experience is improved through interconnection and digital operation and maintenance, so as to better promote the consumption of new energy vehicles and realize the transformation and upgrading of the automobile industry. It is an effective way to solve the large-scale disorderly charging of electric vehicles at present.(The author Liu Yongdong is the Deputy Secretary-General of China Electric Power Enterprise Association)