We learned from the official website of National Development and Reform Commission on September 12 that National Development and Reform Commission, National Energy Administration, Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, and Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development jointly released the Notice on Accelerating the Construction of Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructures in Residential Areas.

    The Notice pointed out 11 related measures, including strengthening the modification of infrastructures in existing residential areas, standardizing the construction of infrastructures in new residential areas, making a good project plan, and positively carrying out pilot demonstration.

    As for strengthening the modification of infrastructures in existing residential areas, the Notice indicated that the power supply enterprises shall, according to development plan and application promotion of electric vehicles as well as the principle of moderate advance, carry out modification of old residential areas on one hand and promote the electrification reconstruction for parking spaces in existing residential areas (including self-managed residential area with high voltage power supply) on the other hand, so as to ensure the power consumption demand of charging infrastructures in residential areas. For private fixed parking spaces (including those with the lease term of one year or more), capacity expansion for the supporting power supply facilities shall be made based on the mode that one parking space is equipped with one electric energy meter having proper capacity. For public parking spaces, reconstruction of supporting power supply facilities shall be performed in combination with the actual situation and charging demand of electric vehicle users in the residential areas and power supply capacity shall be allocated in a reasonable manner. The state shall give policy support, such as providing special construction funds, to the electrification reconstruction for parking spaces in residential areas, and the local government shall coordinate the relevant departments and units to provide convenience for construction.

    For standardizing the construction of infrastructures in new residential areas, the Notice indicated that the construction of integrated mechanical and vertical parking and charging facilities with less land occupied, low cost, and fast effect according to the actual conditions shall be supported. The exploration of integrated intelligent charging management mode in residential areas shall be encouraged.

    Meanwhile, the Notice also pointed out that pilot demonstration works shall be carried out in batches in the major cities including Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei-Shandong Region, Yangtze River Delta and Pearl River Delta. The local development, reform and energy departments shall work together with the real estate (housing) administration departments to take the lead to prepare and organize the implementation of the comprehensive pilot construction schemes for charging infrastructure construction and operation in residential areas.

    According to the Energy-saving and New Energy Automobile Industry Development Plan (2012-2020) issued by the State Council, the accumulative production and sales volume of blade electric vehicles (BEVs) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) will be made to reach 500000 vehicles by 2015; the production capacity of BEVs and PHEVs will be 2000000 vehicles and the accumulative production and sales volume will be over 5000000 vehicles by 2020. The proportion of charging facilities to vehicles is generally 1:3 for buses and 1:5 for passenger vehicles. If we allocate the charging piles based on the standard of one pile for five vehicles, the market scale may be up to RMB11-25 billion by 2015 and RMB100 billion by 2020.

    According to the research report of Industrial Securities, three major logics support the development of charging pile industry, and construction of charging piles has been listed in the top-level design and is increasingly supported by local policies; charging piles become the major bottleneck for electric vehicle development and thus the weakness shall be remedied; Internet of Things and Internet of Vehicles will boost the development of charging pile industry.