New infrastructure makes production and life smarter

“I found range anxiety was not a thing after I discovered so many charging stations on an e-charging application before we started our trip,” said Zhang Huimin, an electronic car owner who recently had a 300-kilometer road trip from Zhejiang province's Lishui to Jiaxing. According to her, the experience of vehicle charging along the route was quite satisfying.

The construction of charging poles is an important part of China’s new infrastructure, as it offers convenience for the country’s expanding group of new energy vehicle (NEV) owners and injects green power to the building of a smart transport network.

In Jiaxing, smart transportation and energy, as well as other new infrastructure projects, are turning technologies into momentum for industrial development, offering firm support for innovative development and transformation of the region.

China led the world in NEV sales and production last year, with both figures exceeding 1.2 million. The scale effect is gradually emerging in the Chinese NEV industry, leading to increasingly better environment for development.

According to a plan released by State Grid Zhejiang Electric Power Co Ltd on April 16, a total of 250 million yuan is expected to be invested to develop charging facilities in Zhejiang.

The province aims to build 82 charging stations for buses, taxis, and online-hailed cabs, as well as pilot charging programs for privately-owned NEVs in residential communities. The plan is believed to accelerate the coordinated operation of charging poles and the power grid, and bring healthy and rapid development to the electric vehicle industry.

Interconnectivity, an internet-based development philosophy, has been incorporated into the construction of NEV charging facilities in Wuzhen, Jiaxing.

The town became the first in the world to build a “charge-and-go” senseless payment charging station for 5G-powered autopilot buses prior to the sixth World Internet Conference (Wuzhen Summit) held last year. The innovative application that introduces 5G to the new infrastructure includes two charging poles each with a power of 60 kilowatts, and is able to charge four buses simultaneously. The charging poles recognize the buses by the latter’s IDs, making the charging process simple and easy.

At present, NEV charging facilities are seen everywhere in Jiaxing. A total of 180 charging stations and 1,326 charging poles are established in the city under the coordination of the State Grid Jiaxing Electric Power Supply Company. As a result, it is easier to charge NEVs in the city, and a clean, efficient and green urban transport network is taking shape.

Apart from the construction of charging facilities, the company has, by making use of big data, the Internet of Things and cloud computing, promoted the building of a smart storage system under the modern smart supply chain. It has completely reformed the way of inventory handling and improved the effective utilization of inventory.

For instance, a mobile application developed by the company is able to precisely distribute cables and other materials actually needed in power repair projects to electricians, and sort out the materials automatically by cable cutters, thus largely reducing the preparation time in power line repairs.

The materials are applied by electricians on their phones after on-site investigation, and claimed after QR code scanning. This method saves about 70 percent of time needed in preparation work, and makes the repairing 40 percent faster.

Smart storage and high-efficient logistics are not only accelerating the sorting, but also improving the efficiency of human resource.

Take the automated guided vehicles (AGVs) applied in a power park Jiaxing’s Tongxiang as an example. According to Xiang Jinyao, an executive with the smart storage department of the power park, the AGVs can easily sort and transport a transformer from the warehouse to the stock-out area with only one backstage operator, while the task needed four to five workers previously.

The rapid development of new infrastructure is making a new blueprint for smart production and life.