China's State Grid to build more NEV chargers

BEIJING - China's State Grid will accelerate construction of charging facilities for new energy vehicles (NEVs) until 2020, a company vice president said Monday.

More than 6,000 public fast-charge stations and 59,000 chargers to power some 3.68 million electric passenger vehicles will be installed, Yang Qing, an executive vice president of the State Grid, told a conference.

The State Grid will make public charging facilities available in 202 cities. In some major cities, including Beijing, Tianjin and Shanghai, a charging facility will be found within a circle of less than 1 km.

This year, the company plans to start construction of 1,888 fast-charge stations with the aim of putting them into service by the end of June 2016. Currently, 618 stations are in operation.

China issued a guideline last week on a nationwide charging network that will fulfill the demands of 5 million electric vehicles by 2020.