State Grid works to guarantee green mobility for travelers

The State Grid Corp of China, the world's largest utility company, has taken a series of measures to ensure travelers' green mobility on the road during the Spring Festival holiday falling between Feb 10 and 17 this year.

The Ministry of Transport has announced earlier that for the extended Spring Festival travel period, which starts on Jan 26 and ends on March 5 for 40 days, some 2.293 billion trips are expected to be made by people making cross-region tours. Among them, trips on highways will be some 2.166 billion in total.

To serve the record-high trips on the road, the State Grid — which shoulders a dual task of safeguarding the country's energy security as well as its economic lifeline as a mighty power supplier — has worked to assist drivers of new electric vehicles (NEVs) by bolstering green charging services.

By considering the traffic flow and charging queues at public charging stations in service areas along expressways, tourist attractions and major travel destinations in advance, the State Grid released an NEV charging strategy during the holiday, guiding NEV owners to plan trips rationally, said Guo Panpan, a staffer from Suqian Power Supply Co of the State Grid, who is based in East China's Jiangsu province.

Meanwhile, the State Grid also asked its subsidiaries nationwide to organize service teams, conducting special patrols in expressway service areas before the travel rush, at tourist attractions and bus charging stations, to eliminate hidden dangers on charging equipment to safeguard their reliable operation, she said.

On Feb 4, at an EV charging station in the prefecture city of Suqian in Jiangsu, a multi-functional mobile energy-storage charging vehicle was charging electric vehicles. With a power of 240 kilowatts, it could meet the charging needs of four vehicles, along with eight other charging stations already built in the Yanghe Service Area.

At Yanghe Service Area, Guo's colleague Wu Dake explained that they had checked the vehicle guidance, signs, price list and availability of charging piles at each station, besides conducting a comprehensive examination of all areas of the charging station to avoid potential safety hazards of the equipment.

Guo added that the State Grid has also established an emergency response system for charging services, monitoring the operational status of charging equipment in real-time, through its vehicle networking platform and requiring duty workers to stand around-the-clock through shifts, in a bid to meet NEV drivers' timely need.

zhuangqiange@chinadaily.com.cn