Top Biz News
Oil companies plan charging stations
By Xiao Wan (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-03-03 10:43
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BEIJING - Domestic oil companies have started developing charging stations for electric vehicles to cash in on the growth in clean energy.
Oil refiner Sinopec has already started to work with the Beijing municipal government to develop such stations. The company has set up a joint venture with a Beijing-based technology company for the stations, a company official said on Tuesday.
The new joint venture will have registered capital of 50 million yuan. It will upg
rade some of Sinopec's existing gas stations in Beijing to electric vehicle charging stations, and also consider extending such stations to regions in Tianjin municipality and Hebei province.
Construction of electric car charging stations is part of the oil company's plans for clean energy development, the official said on condition of anonymity.
China's third largest oil company, CNOOC, has joined forces with domestic IT equipment manufacturer China Potevio Co Ltd to develop new energy vehicles and batteries, as well as power supply systems.
The company has also invested in Tianjin Lishen Battery Joint-Stock, a domestic firm that makes lithium batteries for electric vehicles. CNOOC is planning to build charging stations for electric vehicles as part of its strategy to support alternative energy, a company official said on Tuesday.
Charging stations for electric vehicles are new business opportunities for domestic oil companies, said Lin Boqiang, a professor at Xiamen University. "I believe it will be a very promising business."
Oil consumed by the transportation sector currently accounts for nearly 40 percent of the nation's total oil consumption, and the figure is expected to rise to 60 to 70 percent in 2020.
Development of new energy vehicles, including electric vehicles, will help reduce oil consumption, he said.
"At present over half of the crude oil we are using is imported. From that perspective, using clean energy to power automobiles would help ensure the country's energy security," he said.
Clean energy automobiles can also help China to achieve its target of reducing pollution, he said.
Echoing Lin's views that construction of more electric vehicle charging stations will further boost the clean energy vehicle industry, Jia Xinguang, an auto analyst in Beijing, said that companies should focus on building such stations at major parking lots, as the charging process always takes several hours.
The nation should also put forward an industry standard for building such stations for the healthy growth of the sector, he said.
Wang Bin, president of Beijing Lithium Energy Investment Co, a domestic electric car and battery producer, said his company is keen on developing such stations in parking lots and areas adjacent to shopping malls and restaurants, but not in gas stations.
The company has worked with local government in Tangshan in Hebei province to build several pilot stations, he said.
China's largest electricity distributor, State Grid plans to construct 75 charging stations across 27 cities this year, the company said earlier.
The company completed constructing its first electric car charging station last November. The station, covering 400 square meters, costs 5.08 million yuan, the company said on its website.
