With the country vigorously promoting the construction of charging and replacing infrastructure, and encouraging enterprises to develop models of replacing electricity, the mode of replacing electricity has stood on the forefront. At the end of October 2021, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued the "Notice on Launching the Pilot Work of New Energy Vehicle Switching Mode Application", and a total of 11 cities were included in the pilot scope. The launch of the pilot project urgently requires the introduction of standards for power exchange facilities. In order to implement the Development Plan of New Energy Vehicle Industry (2021-2035), promote the application innovation of new energy vehicle power exchange mode and support the realization of the goal of "double carbon", the group standard of "Code for the Construction of Shared Power Exchange Station for Electric Passenger Cars" (hereinafter referred to as the "Standard") was officially released recently, with the specific objectives of strengthening the research and development of key technologies, accelerating the construction of power exchange infrastructure and promoting the application of power exchange mode vehicles, and accelerating the formation of new energy vehicles.
Since 2008, China has started to promote the electric exchange mode in the field of pure electric buses. However, due to the policy environment, technical level, cost factors and market scale at that time, the electric exchange mode has not been widely used. In recent years, with the progress of power exchange technology, the reduction of power exchange station construction cost and the continuous improvement of power exchange standards, enterprises represented by Beiqi New Energy, Weilai Automobile and Aodong New Energy have begun to increase the research and promotion of power exchange modes. However, due to the universality of cross-brand, multi-vehicle, power exchange platform and device technology, battery pack communication protocol, electrical connector technology, liquid-cooled connector technology, battery pack technology, power exchange mechanism technology, data safety management early warning analysis and other technologies, a power exchange station can only serve a single vehicle brand or even a single vehicle model, which leads to the contradiction between the increasing demand for station construction and the limited land and power resources.
With the development of the pilot application of power exchange mode, in order to meet the work deployment and requirements of the country to adhere to the market-oriented approach to promote the exploration of innovative power exchange business models, the Standard was issued at the right time, which can verify the technical feasibility of shared power exchange stations in the form of more flexible and inclusive group standards and lay a solid foundation for further innovation and large-scale application of business models. At present, the idea is to promote the sharing power exchange technology to the market in a "three-step" way.
In the first step, in addition to the shape and size of battery pack, interface structure, communication protocol, electrical connector and water-cooled pipeline interface, the shared power exchange station will realize the unlocking of mechanical locking mechanism, replacement of platform, handling equipment, safety protection facilities, vehicle identification system, battery pack storage shelf, power system, charger, infrastructure and other basic resources on the basis of sharing. Among them, it includes using the cloud platform to realize interconnection and intelligent identification.
In the second step, with the gradual expansion of the number of enterprises participating in the power exchange mode, the shared power exchange station will further realize the sharing of vehicle platforms on the basis of sharing communication protocols and electrical connectors.
In the third step, the shared power exchange station will eventually realize the sharing of battery pack platform and battery module.
It is hoped that by providing the industry with unified technical requirements for sharing the power exchange station, the power exchange mode will become the active choice in the energy supply market of electric vehicles. Of course, this is a huge and complicated market operation system, which requires the close cooperation of car companies, operators, power companies and land resources parties, and the industry needs to provide technical possibilities for this business model, so that all participants can jointly establish a sustainable business model.
From the content of the Standard, it includes 13 parts, including general rules, technical requirements for power exchange platform and device, communication protocol requirements for battery pack, vehicle identification system requirements, technical requirements for battery pack, technical requirements for vehicle power exchange mechanism, technical requirements for electrical connector, technical requirements for liquid-cooled connector, etc. It also defines the requirements for charging equipment, handling equipment and battery storage system of shared power exchange station for electric passenger cars, as well as technical requirements for data safety management and risk early warning analysis. In addition, it also puts forward requirements for safety protection and emergency measures, site selection and planning, and safe operation of the power station. It can be said that the "Standard" regulates the sharing of power stations for electric passenger cars from all levels, so that the construction and management of power stations can be followed.
For example, the Standard clearly points out that the steps of power replacement include seven steps: vehicle and station authentication and identification, vehicle positioning, battery pack unlocking, battery pack transfer, battery pack locking, vehicle self-inspection and order settlement. The key stages of the development of shared power exchange include five stages in the order from easy to difficult: resource sharing, power exchange equipment sharing, power exchange interface standardization, power exchange system and battery standardization, and vehicle chassis standardization.
It should be pointed out that sharing is not all-inclusive, but something should be done. In the process of compiling the Standard, all major participating enterprises made compromises for the common goal of the industry to a greater or lesser extent, and made efforts to improve the economy, convenience and ease of use of the shared power exchange station on the premise of ensuring the safety, reliability and stability of the use. Therefore, the Standard does not include all locking mechanisms, and there are only two types of locking mechanisms for replacing the integral battery pack of electric passenger cars-snap-in locking mechanisms and wedge-shaped (threaded) locking mechanisms. In addition, in order to establish a business model of shared power exchange, the types of battery packs should not be too many, otherwise the shared power exchange station needs to reserve many battery packs with different specifications, which reduces the economy.
(The author is the director of the Technology and Certification Department of China Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure Promotion Alliance, and the main drafter of the Code for the Construction of Electric Passenger Car Sharing and Switching Stations) Liu Kai’s China Auto News (2022-01-24 002 edition)
