More charging poles needed as NEV sector continues to grow

On April 14, State Grid announced plans to invest 2.7 billion yuan to add 78,000 charging poles in 24 provinces and municipalities across the country this year.

Among them, there are 53,000 charging poles in residential areas, 18,000 for public use and 7,000 for special purposes.

China Southern Power Grid said that it will invest 25.1 billion yuan in the following four years through investment and acquisition to build 150 large-scale charging stations and 380,000 charging poles, which are more than 10 times the existing quantity.

"The increased investment made by China's State Grid and Southern Power Grid will help raise the whole society's awareness of the convenience of charging electric cars and benefit the whole industry chain," Gao said.

Li Lili, a researcher at Tsinghua Sichuan Energy Internet Research Institute, said that some bottlenecks need to be solved to better serve the whole industry chain.

They include addressing the difficulty for charging operators to make profit, difficulty in installing charging poles in residential areas and poor charging experience with public charging facilities.

"The construction of charging facilities should be carried out in a targeted manner, taking different fields into account," Li said.

The government has made a big push to replace gasoline-fueled buses, taxis and sanitation vehicles with NEVs.

As a consequence, charging poles for these vehicles will have substantial growth, the construction of which asks for concerted collaboration with the government.

Close attention should also be paid to the surplus of charging poles in some areas, Li noted. Local governments should reinforce its industry plans and investment guidance in an attempt to allow the investment to flow to areas with inadequate charging facilities, and avoid idle and ineffective investment.