Pingtan in Fujian province will build 20 fast charging stations with a total of 465 charging piles this year in a move to further the application of new energy vehicles (NEVs) in the city.

Chen Daibin, deputy director of the sales department of Pingtan Power Supply Company explained, "All the charging stations shall be built in public places. Users will have the option of either fast charging piles or normal charging piles."

He added that the fast charging mode takes the battery to 100 percent in an hour whereas the normal one takes about six hours.

Pingtan Power Supply Company has signed a cooperation agreement with Pingtan Comprehensive Pilot Zone. According to the agreement, the company shall build six charging stations with 6,281 charging piles specially designed for large electric buses over the 13th Five-Year Plan period (2016-20).

The first charging station located at Jinjing Bay bus parking lot will soon be put into use.

China is actively promoting the use of new energy vehicles in order to build a cleaner highway transportation network. By 2020, the State Grid Corporation of China (SGCC) intends to establish 10,000 fast charging stations with 120,000 charging piles along highways, covering a total of 202 cities across the country.

An artistic impression of a new energy vehicle [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]