Capital leads the rest in building new facilities

Beijing is accelerating the construction of charging piles across the city as China seeks to further promote the development of electric vehicles and related sectors.

The biggest centralized charging station for electric vehicles in the Chinese capital, located in the underground parking lot of the Wukesong area, was put into use on May 15 and will provide 1,300 charging services daily for vehicles with 200 charging piles, according to State Grid Beijing Electric Power Co, operator of the station.

The station will also provide charging services for the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games, it said.

The company said it will further cover the city with charging piles this year, especially on the Beijing-Chongli expressway, which links the Chinese capital with Chongli district of Zhangjiakou, Hebei province, to further facilitate the movement of electric vehicles into the district where the majority of the Beijing 2022 snow events will be staged.

The capital so far has more than 205,100 charging piles, the most for any city nationwide. Around 1.20 billion kilowatt-hours were provided to electric vehicles in 2019, equivalent to reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 1.72 million metric tons.

As the country encourages the use of green vehicles to tackle pollution, the company has been pushing forward the construction of EV charging piles in recent years to facilitate green transportation via private EVs as well as the more than 10,000 electric buses and taxis in Beijing.

The move is in accordance with the country's plans to further boost sales of new energy vehicles and intelligent connected vehicles to push for the green and smart growth of the world's largest automobile market.

The new charging points in Beijing are also part of a huge national EV charger rollout in China. Sales of new energy vehicles are expected to make up about 25 percent of new car sales by 2025, according to a draft plan by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

The plan proposes another 1,187 charging piles in the capital this year, mostly at venues related to the 2022 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games, the Beijing-Chongli expressway and the city's Daxing International Airport.