China’s Largest EV Charging Stations Open in Shenzhen
30 December 2009
People’s Daily. China’s largest electric vehicle charging stations were put into service earlier this week at the Universiade Center in Shenzhen. The first batch comprises 2 charging stations with 134 charging stands with a combined charging capacity of 2,480 kVA.
[In the US, Level 1 charging is spec’d at a nominal continuous power of 1.44 kVA; Level 2 charging, 6.7-7.7 kVA; Level 3, 192 kVA. (1999 NEC Handbook) ]
The Universiade Center charging station is equipped with 6 express chargers that can provide charging to taxies, cars and buses. The station is large enough to simultaneously serve 12 automobiles. The station, with an investment of 10.52 million yuan [US$41.5 million] and an area of 1,092 square meters, is currently China’s largest charging station in terms of area and investment scale. The Hexie charging station is equipped with 3 express chargers and can accommodate 6 automobiles. According to the long-term plan, the combined charge capacity of the 2 charging stations can be expanded to 2,720 kVA. In addition, the 134 charging poles are mainly located in public and community parking lots in each district of Shenzhen. The majority of the charging stations are under the slow charging mode which can facilitate drivers to charge their cars during the off-peak period overnight.
The Universiade Center is a landmark green building project currently under construction at a cost of US$548 million, comprising a main sports stadium, swimming complex and multifunctional arena. Shenzhen is the site of the World University Games in August 2011.
To promote a green Universiade, all shuttle buses between the Universiade Village and main event venues will be green energy vehicles. Putting the Universiade Center charging station into service as scheduled, is just a specific demonstration of China Southern Power Grid Company’s contributions to promote a green Universiade. China Southern Power Grid Company is a partner of the 26th World Universiade.
In March 2009, Shenzhen was selected as one of the first batch of 13 model cities to promote energy-saving and new-energy vehicles by the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Ministry of Finance, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. By 2012, more than 24,000 new-energy vehicles will be in use Shenzhen, increasing to 100,000 by 2015—about 6% of the current number of vehicles in Shenzhen.
These will need to be built eventually so might as well start now to try and address the chicken-egg EV-charging infrastructure problem.
Posted by: ejj | 30 December 2009 at 06:23 AM
It seems that, as usual, they dont go at it half way.
China may quickly become the land of electrified vehicles, both from a supply and operation points of view.
It is doubthful that USA or Europe will be able to keep up with their accellerated transistion rate.
Posted by: HarveyD | 30 December 2009 at 07:30 AM
For some years now, China produced as many electric bicycles as internal combustion engined bicycles in efforts to reduce pollution in cities. Bicycle repair shops popped up in my areas to repair electrics. It was as if the Chinese experimented on bicycles to get things up & running for electric trucks & cars.
Posted by: litesong | 30 December 2009 at 10:38 PM
Unfortunately the efforts to go electric are just too late for 16 of 20 cities:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=10221268
Economic growth = catastrophic environment
Posted by: sulleny | 01 January 2010 at 10:10 AM