British Petroleum (hereinafter referred to as bp) recently signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Avita Technology to accelerate the development of China's ultra-fast charging (hereinafter referred to as "ultra-fast charging") network. It can be seen that the traditional oil giants are vigorously deploying the new energy vehicle charging business.
If the manufacturing competition of lithium battery products is the first half of the new energy industry, then the second half will definitely focus on "new services". The gradual transformation of refueling services into charging services, battery replacement services, and testing services is also the gradual switching of application scenarios. Complement each other, especially the ultra-fast charging service is a very urgent and rigid demand, and this demand will be greater as the number of new energy vehicles increases.
Oil giants intensively deploy charging business
It is not the first time that Sinopec has deployed a new energy vehicle charging and replacing business to build a "photovoltaic charging and testing" power station with CATL.
In April 2021, Sinopec announced that it will cooperate with Weilai to build 5,000 Weilai power stations in Sinopec's national network by 2025.
Sinopec has 30,000 gas stations. With such a huge gas station, the construction of charging stations or power stations has advantages that other companies cannot match.
This year, Sinopec and NIO jointly built 175 charging and swapping stations, with an average of one Sinopec cooperation station going online every two days. By the end of 2021, Sinopec has built 1,212 charging stations, 83 swapping stations, and 1,048 distributed photovoltaic power generation stations.
According to the plan, Sinopec is making every effort to build the world's leading clean energy chemical company, accelerating the construction of "oil, gas and hydrogen power service" comprehensive refueling stations. photovoltaic power generation site.
On August 1, the first charging and replacement station jointly developed by NIO and Shell, Xiamen Tong'an Shell Station, was officially launched. According to the agreement, NIO and Shell will jointly promote the construction and operation of charging and swapping facilities. In terms of swapping stations, in China, the two sides will build a total of 100 swapping stations by 2025; in Europe, the two sides plan to start pilot work on the construction and operation of swapping stations from 2022. In terms of charging facilities, the Shell European charging network will be open to NIO users.
On August 5, a reporter from Securities Daily learned from bp that the company signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Avita Technology to accelerate the development of ultra-fast charging networks. It is understood that bp's electrification and mobility department (bppulse) and Avita Technology will jointly invest to build more than 100 cooperative ultra-fast charging stations in 19 cities in China by the end of 2023. bppulse will be responsible for the construction and operation of charging stations. . The power station is equipped with a charging gun with a charging power of up to 240kW, which can last for 200 kilometers in just 10 minutes.
"The deployment of new energy by oil companies is also a pragmatic move to actively transform and embrace new development trends. It is also a way of practicing low-carbon emission reduction, reflecting social responsibility and realizing the company's new low-carbon economic development path." Qi Haishen told reporters Said that oil companies including "two barrels of oil" have a first-mover advantage in the market for charging, battery swapping, and testing services, and they have a huge system of gas stations. Many, if you provide some diversified service content while providing charging services, it will increase customer stickiness.
Charging infrastructure needs to be improved
New energy vehicles are booming, and the huge market is giving birth to more and more capital. For oil giants, the development of new energy charging business can just make use of their gas stations that already have advantages.
Data show that in June, the production and sales of new energy vehicles were 590,000 and 596,000 respectively, an increase of 1.3 times year-on-year. In the first half of this year, the production and sales of new energy vehicles reached 2.661 million and 2.6 million respectively, a year-on-year increase of 1.2 times. The scale of production and sales reached a new high, and the market penetration rate was 21.6%.
With the increase in sales of new energy vehicles, the demand for charging is also increasing, and the size of the charging market is also increasing.
On August 5, data released by the National Energy Administration showed that from January to June, 1.3 million new charging piles were added across the country, 3.8 times that of the same period last year.
However, in comparison, the construction of new energy vehicle charging infrastructure still needs to be improved, and problems such as difficult charging and slow charging still need to be further solved.
At the beginning of this year, ten departments including the National Development and Reform Commission jointly issued the "Implementation Opinions on Further Improving the Service Support Capability of Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure", which made it clear that by the end of the "14th Five-Year Plan", my country's electric vehicle charging support capability will be further improved, and it is necessary to form a moderate The advanced, well-balanced, intelligent and efficient charging infrastructure system can meet the charging needs of more than 20 million electric vehicles.
It is worth mentioning that for oil giants such as Sinopec, BP, Shell and other oil giants with gas stations, it can be said that it has a natural advantage to build charging stations along the highway.