Last week, I talked about "Policy Speed Up, Performance Exceeds Expectations Collectively!" The core of the industrial logic of charging piles is driven by domestic policies. Today, let's talk about the future development trend of charging pile industry.
Inadequate charging convenience is the most important factor preventing consumers from choosing new energy vehicles 。 Generally speaking, it only takes 5 minutes for fuel cars to recharge their energy, while it takes half an hour to one hour for electric cars to recharge their energy even if they are fast charging. There is a big gap between the two. In order to solve the problem of convenient tram energy supplement, the policy is vigorously promoting the construction of DC charging piles, and companies in the industry are also taking new technical means to update the charging technology, High pressure fast charging and liquid cooling cooling are two trends in the charging pile industry 。
1. High voltage fast charging drives faster charging efficiency.
Compared with slow charging, fast charging is characterized by higher power and faster charging. Currently, there are 60KW and 120KW charging poles in the state grid for fast charging. It takes up to one hour to fully charge 60 KWH of electricity, while slow charging is generally only 7KW, which takes about 8+hours to fully charge; In addition, the profitability of the charging pile depends mainly on the utilization rate of the operation. It is estimated that it takes less time for the charging pile with higher power to reach the break even point. According to statistics, the 30KW charging pile needs to reach the utilization rate of 10+%, while the 120KW charging pile needs only about 7% to break even. This is one of the reasons why manufacturers are promoting high power DC fast charging. In terms of DC fast charging technology route, domestic car enterprises prefer high-voltage fast charging, that is, the way to increase the charging voltage. At present, limited by the withstand voltage capability of IGBT power devices, vehicle enterprises generally adopt 400V voltage platform, and the charging power can reach 100KW; Since then, Porsche, Xiaopeng and other car companies have adopted the 800V voltage platform to make the charging power reach 300KW and 480KW respectively. The latter can charge from 10% to 80% in 15 minutes, and can charge for 5 minutes with a range of 200km, further reducing the gap in energy compensation; According to media reports, Huawei has developed a charging pile for a 1000V voltage platform, with a maximum charging efficiency of 600KW.
As of April 2023, member companies of the Charging Alliance have reported a total of 2.025 million public charging posts, of which 855000 are DC charging posts, accounting for only 42%; However, public charging posts only account for about 40%, which means
DC fast charging piles only account for about 16%, and there is obvious room for improvement 。 2. Liquid cooling has better heat dissipation performance.
Liquid cooled fast charging means that a special liquid circulation channel is set between the cable and the charging gun, in which the liquid coolant used for heat dissipation is added, and the coolant circulation is driven by the power pump, so as to bring out the heat generated in the charging process; The power part of the system uses liquid cooling for heat dissipation, and has no contact with the outside air. It can achieve IP65 protection level, with higher safety, less noise, lower maintenance costs and other advantages.
In terms of efficiency, the output power of the charging post is limited by the charging gun line. The charging gun with liquid cooling and heat dissipation can be used with a very thin cable. Since the heating of the cable is proportional to the square of the current, the higher the charging current, the more heating. To reduce the heating, it needs to increase the cross-sectional area of the wire, so the cable is heavier, which is unfriendly to the hand. Using a liquid cooled charging gun can reduce the weight by 30-40%. The full liquid cooling charging post adopts a liquid cooling charging module, and there is no air duct at the front and back of the liquid cooling module. The module exchanges heat with the outside world by the coolant circulating inside the liquid cooling plate, so that the power part of the charging post can be fully enclosed. The liquid cooling charging module and electrical accessories in the charging pile body have no contact with the external environment, so IP65 protection can be achieved with higher reliability. At the same time, the traditional air-cooled charging pile has a built-in high speed small fan, which makes a lot of noise during operation. Charging at night will affect the surrounding residents, while the liquid cooled charging pile has no such problem.
