Electric vehicle charing station promotes clean air plan

Sihui Electric Bus Charging Station, the largest of its kind in Beijing, was officially put into operation on Sept 16. The station can provide charging services for four electric buses at a time. It will help popularize “green commuting” and the clean air action plan in the capital.

The station is installed with an automatic intelligent battery charging and changing system, the most advanced in China, according to the station.

Four battery-changing machines are operational at the station. A bus will only spend eight to ten minutes to change its batteries. For charging service, a total of 640 batteries can be charged at the same time, taking three hours each.

Beijing’s first electric vehicle charging station was built in 2008. There were 64 stations at the end of August 2013, including stations for electric buses, taxis and sanitation trucks. The facilities have reduced carbon dioxide emissions by 7,404 tons.

Beijing plans to build two or three more charging stations in the next year similar to Sihui’s, Huang Yu from Beijing Electric Power Corporation said. The amount of new energy and clean energy vehicles will expand to 200,000 in 2017, according to the Beijing Five-Year Clean Air Action Plan (2013-17).