The Beijing branch of the State Grid Corporation of China recently completed the construction of a Xizhimen charging station for electric vehicles, which is located within Beijing’s Second Ring Road.
The charging station for electric vehicles covers more than 700 square meters and will have five charging poles that can charge 10 2-ton level electric sanitation vehicles at the same time. The completion means that the plan of electric vehicle charging stations with a 5-kilometer service range is coming true.
Beijing is rapidly developing its new-energy vehicle charging service network. Currently, eight charging stations have been built. The city eyes 466 charging stations in five years.
However, there have been no charging stations that serve private cars specifically. An executive with State Grid Beijing company said that charging stations currently serve vehicles in public transportation, sanitation and taxi industries, but more charging stations are needed to serve residents’ private electric vehicles.
According to Beijing’s 12th Five-Year Plan for the auto industry, the city will have 100,000 electric vehicles, mainly passenger cars, by 2015. Pure electric vehicle will be the focus of the city’s new energy vehicle development. Meanwhile, the city won’t exclude other types of new energy vehicles including plug-in electric cars and hybrid cars.
“We will form a classified smart charging network that has 256 charging stations as the mainframe and 210 delivery stations as branches,” said the executive with the State Grid.
He added that 385 of them will serve private cars. After the network is built, electric auto charging stations will be nearly as widespread as gas stations.
The company plans to build 39 charging stations in 2011, 18 of which are for passenger cars, while the others will serve city buses and sanitation vehicles. The 39 stations are able to meet charging and battery replacement demand of 850 passenger cars, 300 city buses and 1,220 sanitation vehicles. A passenger vehicle charging service channel that runs through Beijing from north to south and a charging station network from Beijing to Tianjin will be finished. The selection of sites for new charging stations has generally been completed.
Experts noted that Beijing should have 30 to 50 charging and battery replacement stations for passenger cars with its Fifth Ring Road and build charging piles with the formation of new communities, in order to meet the demand following the spread of electric private cars and achieve low-carbon traffic.
