On the morning of January 17th, the 2021 China Electric Vehicle Hundred-People Forum Infrastructure Sub-forum opened in Beijing. Academician Huang Qili shared the relevant issues of energy transformation and the integration of electric vehicles under the carbon-neutral vision.
On September 22nd of last year, President Xi Jinping stated at the 75th UN General Assembly that China will increase its independent contribution and adopt more effective policies and measures, aiming for carbon dioxide emissions to peak before 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality before 2060. On December 12th of the same year, President Xi Jinping stated at the Climate Ambition Summit that by 2030, China’s carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP would decrease by over 65% compared to 2005, non-fossil energy would account for about 25% of primary energy consumption, and the total installed capacity of wind and solar power would reach 1.2 billion kilowatt-hours.
Let’s take a look at the actual carbon emissions in our country now. In 2019, China’s carbon emissions were 9.8 billion tons, accounting for 27.2% of the world’s emissions. The United States, India, Russia, Japan, Germany, Iran, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, and Canada ranked from second to tenth respectively. China’s emissions exceed the total emissions of the United States, India, and Russia, indicating that our emissions are at a high level. Although some countries, such as South Korea, have proposed to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, the base is different, and our base is large. Second, if we want to achieve the two centenary goals, the hundredth anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China, and build China into a strong socialist country with distinctive characteristics, energy consumption still needs to continue to increase. It is a very difficult strategic task to achieve peak and carbon neutrality in a situation where the existing carbon dioxide emissions are large, and the incremental development may be fast.
Our code of action should be to improve strategic positioning, take early action, strengthen planning and accelerate comprehensively and strongly, and foster the strategic goals of achieving carbon peak and carbon neutrality by 2030 and 2060 throughout the whole of society.
Under the carbon-neutral vision, Huang Qili believes that there are four main ways to achieve energy transformation in China:
First, clean and low carbonization of primary energy. Utilizing renewable energy on the supply side to replace fossil fuels at a high proportion.
Second, high electrification of secondary energy. Promote the electrification of the whole society, increase the proportion of electricity in the comprehensive energy system, and improve energy efficiency. Because for every 1% increase in the proportion of electrification, energy intensity per unit of GDP will decrease by 4 percentage points.
Third, intelligent development of the power grid. Promote the deep integration of the power grid with information and digital technologies.
Fourth, comprehensive and national-level energy and resource conservation. Strongly implement “dual control” to control the total energy consumption.
According to statistics, the energy intensity of our current unit GDP is four times that of Japan and three times that of Germany. There are still many areas of unreasonable energy consumption.Therefore, vigorously developing renewable energy, forming an energy and power structure dominated by non-fossil energy sources, and creating a smart link and intelligent grid for the power system are inevitable requirements for China to achieve efficient, clean, green, and low-carbon transformation and development of energy. Herein, electric vehicles have boosted energy transformation:
Firstly, they can help ensure the regulatory resources needed for the development of renewable energy. In 2019, clean energy installed capacity accounted for around 40% excluding thermal power, but this will increase to 63% by 2035, and the proportion of clean energy electricity generation will reach 31%. Therefore, renewable energy must account for the incremental 40-60%, and the stock energy source must also be replaced. In the future, the proportion of renewable energy for power generation will become larger, and the regulatory resources will become insufficient because wind power and solar energy are subject to climate changes, which cause instability and volatility. In order to meet users’ demand for electricity, sufficient regulatory resources are necessary, and this is where electric vehicles play a great role. If we predict that the scale of electric vehicles will reach 100 million, and each vehicle is equipped with a 100 kWh battery, according to the calculation of a 7 kW charging power, the theoretical equivalent storage power could reach 700 million kilowatts, and the theoretical charging and discharging capacity could reach 100 billion kWh. At that time, electric vehicles will become an important, convenient and flexible bidirectional power supply for the power grid.
Secondly, electric transportation can contribute to a highly electrified society. Last year, China’s net energy imports amounted to 1 billion tons of standard coal, of which 500 million tons were crude oil imports, with a foreign dependence rate of 72.4%, 60% of which came from unstable regions in the Middle East and Africa, and the transport route was very limited, mainly through the Strait of Malacca and the Strait of Hormuz. In 2018, the energy consumption for transportation in China was approximately 530 million tons of standard coal, accounting for 11.4% of the country’s total energy consumption, of which 88.6% was from petroleum, 6.6% from natural gas, and only 3.8% from electricity; the proportion of electrified transportation in China’s secondary energy sources is only 0.4%, which is very small. Currently, China’s electrification rate of secondary energy sources is only 27%, but it is targeted to achieve 35% by 2035 and 50% by 2050; thus, electrification in the power sector needs to catch up quickly.If we consider passenger cars, assuming that the fuel consumption of each car is 8 liters per 100 kilometers and the car is driven for 10,000 kilometers per year, by 2035, if 100 million electric vehicles are developed, the annual reduction in gasoline consumption will be 60 million tons, which means a saving of 100 million tons of crude oil and a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions of 180 million tons. Therefore, if all passenger cars are replaced with electric vehicles in the future, which means more than 300 million electric vehicles are developed, the annual reduction in gasoline consumption will be 180 million tons, which is equivalent to a reduction in crude oil consumption of 300 million tons, or about 60% of the country’s oil imports in 2019, and a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions of 540 million tons. At the same time, the electricity for electric vehicles should come from clean and low-carbon renewable energy, and the electricity consumption can be as high as 450 billion kilowatt-hours. In 2019, the total wind and solar power generation in our country was 630 billion kilowatt-hours. If all passenger cars are theoretically replaced by electric vehicles, they will consume 450 billion kilowatt-hours, which is about 3/4 of the total wind and solar generated in 2019. Therefore, significantly increasing the proportion of electric energy in transportation can support the healthy development of renewable energy, and it can be said that vigorously developing low-carbon and green electric transportation can reduce the country’s dependence on foreign oil resources, ensure national security, help the development of renewable energy, and increase the proportion of electrification in society.
Let’s take a look at the several stages of the electric vehicle’s assistance to the energy transformation and development. The relationship between electric vehicles, the power grid, and charging facilities can be seen as a connection between the power supply and the load. The power grid is a nexus or an umbilical cord, and the charging equipment is an interface. Electric vehicles are important users. Therefore, the integration of the power grid, charging facilities, and vehicles should be developed in a coordinated manner. It should be developed from the original disorderly charging V0G, which can only charge and the power is unidirectional and unadjustable, to ordered charging V1G, which is unidirectional but with adjustable power. Then it can be further developed to vehicle-grid interaction V2G, with energy being bidirectional, which can both charge and discharge. Further development to VGI, the integration of vehicle and grid, will allow for friendly coordination, deep interaction development in electric vehicles and the power grid, and the integration of the two.
From the current situation of electric vehicles and charging facilities, the development of electric vehicles in 2020 exceeded expectations, although greatly influenced by the COVID-19 epidemic. The sales of new energy vehicles in 2020 reached 1.3 million units, and by the end of last year, the national stock of new energy vehicles was 4.92 million, accounting for 1.75% of the total number of automobiles, among which pure electric vehicles accounted for 4 million units, or 81.3% of the total new energy vehicles, which means that the proportion of electric vehicles in the total number of automobiles is still low.The development of electric cars has led to a rapid increase in the number of charging facilities. As of the end of November last year, there were over 1.5 million charging poles in China, with nearly 700,000 public poles and 800,000 private poles. Furthermore, the power module for direct current charging has been completely localized and the cost has decreased by 90% over the past five years. The fast-charging network on highways is also leading the world, with over 2,000 charging stations and 9,000 charging poles built along 42 highways, covering more than 50,000 kilometers and accounting for 39% of the country’s highways.
Despite this rapid development of electric vehicles and charging facilities, there are still some problems that need to be addressed.
The first issue is the need for further improvement in overall safety. Occasionally, electric car batteries catch fire, and some fires occur after charging or during driving, which can have a certain impact on the industry and society. Increasing the safety of batteries is crucial for technological advancement. Another issue is that in terms of charging equipment, improper operation or user error can cause equipment damage or even electric shock to personnel. Information leakage, including identity and vehicle information, is another security concern that needs to be addressed.
The second issue is the imbalance in the planning mechanism and development of public charging facilities. One aspect of this is the uneven regional development, with half of the 1 million charging poles concentrated in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangdong, Jiangsu, and Zhejiang provinces. Other regions, such as southwest and northwest China, have far fewer charging poles, resulting in mismatched supply and demand, and low overall utilization rates of public poles, which is only 10%. In addition, the planning and guarantee mechanisms are not yet robust. Although the government has regulations regarding the reservation of charging facilities for new housing developments, some local governments lack awareness or do not fully support the allocation of land and electricity network planning. This leads to a failure of some policies for supporting charging facility construction to be implemented.
The third issue concerns the difficulty of residential charging. About 30%-50% of private cars do not have fixed charging poles for residential use. One problem is that many residential areas do not have enough fixed parking spaces, and some older residential areas do not have the necessary supporting infrastructure to install charging poles. Additionally, the construction mode of private poles needs to be improved to avoid the lack of professional maintenance or the threat to equipment quality and safe operation caused by the casual installation of wires that cross walls or roads. Finally, most new residential areas have not yet strictly implemented the relevant requirements for coordinated electricity grid planning and city development, which results in a lack of charging poles.Fourth, the application system of interaction between electric vehicles and the power grid has not yet been established. The first issue is the lack of unified technical standards for V1G and V2G, and the host manufacturers and charging companies do not have a consistent opinion on market promotion, making promotion difficult. The second issue is the lack of policy support and attractiveness to users, particularly for V2G. Policies such as power access for discharge applications and fire safety inspections are deficient. The third issue is the lack of a comprehensive commercial model, and relying solely on the profit from peak differential prices does not attract users. The national supporting market has not yet formed, and is still in the stage of construction and development. These issues have caused specific problems, which have prevented the electric vehicle ecosystem from functioning well.
Based on the problems faced by electric vehicles, several suggestions are proposed as follows:
First, develop or revise the roadmap for the development of electric vehicles, charging facilities, and vehicle-grid interaction based on the strategic goal of carbon peaking and carbon neutrality. Relevant government departments should lead and organize related business units to accelerate research and development for the roadmap of electric vehicles, charging facilities, and vehicle-grid interactions. It is necessary to determine the year it will be developed, what degree of development, what crucial technical issues need to be addressed, and what policy safeguards are required.
Second, accelerate the technical innovation of vehicle-grid integration and promote the integration of electric vehicles into the carbon trading mechanism. It is necessary to promote green and low-carbon electricity for electric vehicles. Accelerate the construction of the power market’s auxiliary service mechanism, revise the development goals, and resolve issues related to battery technology, electric drive technology, control technology, vehicle technology, and energy management systems, etc. In the charging field, further establish and promote advanced charging technologies such as high-power charging and wireless charging, as well as advanced information technologies like AI big data, and V2G/VGI, which integrate the vehicle situation and power grid. It is necessary to formulate related policies related to vehicle-grid interaction, promote the market environment and price mechanism, encourage exploration of sustainable business models, and establish scientific and reasonable maintenance mechanisms. Strengthen the safety guarantee, safeguard the safety of charging and discharging of electric vehicles, strengthen the safety performance of battery packs, improve the energy and safety management level of batteries, innovate charging facility safety protection technology, and accelerate the revision of safety standards. Establish a regulatory system for physical and information security standards, and enhance security supervision. The competent regulatory authorities should further regulate industry safety management, establish a charging and discharging safety supervision mechanism with enterprise responsibility, industry self-discipline, and government regulation.
Third, strengthen the scientific layout and management of public charging facilities. The development of public charging facilities should match the development of electric vehicles and be combined with big data to know where there is a need for charging facilities and where to build them. Consequently, it is essential to optimize the selection and construction of these facilities, incorporate charging facilities into city development plans, coordinate them with the distribution network construction and transportation line planning, and progress in an orderly, scientific, and smooth manner.Fourth, we need to speed up cracking the problem of charging in residential areas. We should strengthen the overall planning and construction of charging piles in residential areas, implement professional management, and require the installation of charging piles in newly-built communities. We should reform the existing communities to encourage a combination of private and public charging piles, promote orderly charging, encourage the sharing of personal charging piles and the V2G mechanism of charging, changing, discharging electric vehicles, making the grid more flexible in charging and discharging.
Closing remarks:
Firstly, the development of electric vehicles and ensuring the supply security of national energy petroleum, increasing the proportion of electrification in society, reducing energy intensity, and supporting the healthy development of renewable energy are important measures in energy transformation. Little things can make a big difference, and four-wheeled low-carbon green travel is one such example.
Secondly, peaking carbon emissions and achieving carbon neutrality is a great test of the times. We should further optimize the roadmap for the development of electric vehicles and infrastructure, have a higher understanding, strong planning, early action, accelerate comprehensively, participate comprehensively, and coordinate development. We should strive to build a green and low-carbon travel ecosystem, allowing everyone to fulfill their glorious responsibilities in energy transformation and also to enjoy the friendly environment of green and low-carbon travel.
This article is a translation by ChatGPT of a Chinese report from 42HOW. If you have any questions about it, please email bd@42how.com.